05/09/2021
NEWS STORY
Uralkali Haas F1 Team driver Mick Schumacher finished 18th while Nikita Mazepin was forced into retirement at Sunday's Dutch Grand Prix, Round 13 of the 2021 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, at Circuit Zandvoort.
Schumacher started from 17th place on Pirelli P Zero Red soft tires but had to cede track position early on after sustaining damage to his front wing. Schumacher came in on lap 4 of 72 for repairs, taking on White hard tires, and then made a second stop on lap 32 for Yellow medium tires. Schumacher stayed out of trouble thereafter to classify 18th and in the process maintain his perfect finishing record since graduating to Formula 1.
Mazepin took the start from 18th place on Yellow medium tires and gained a couple of spots, running 16th, prior to moving on to hard tires. Unfortunately Mazepin's VF-21 suffered a hydraulic issue and he was brought to the pits to retire the car on lap 43.
Up front Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen delivered for the home spectators - the Dutch racer claiming his seventh win of the season ahead of the Mercedes pairing of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.
Uralkali Haas F1 Team will return to action at the Italian Grand Prix - the third and final race of the current triple-header hosted at Autodromo Nazionale Monza from September 10 to 12.
Nikita Mazepin: "I'm upset on having to retire the car as my job is to drive and I've not driven enough over the last few race weekends. Luckily, I don't feel at fault for this, so that's one thing to put in the back of your mind. I was having a good race, I was having a lot of fun - I had a very good opening lap, and I was then trying to manage what we had. Unfortunately, the hydraulic issue meant we needed to manage things, turn down the engine - which meant Robert Kubica got by us. As a precaution then we had to stop and retire the car. I was giving it my best and I just want to get the best result for the team. It just wasn't meant to be today."
Mick Schumacher: "Tough - it could've been better. It seemed there was an issue with the front wing - I'm not quite sure what it was - but I was losing a lot of front end, so I came in to change it. The hard tire didn't really run how I wanted it to, so we had to pit a bit early onto the medium and that worked a lot better, so from that perspective we can be quite happy. I'm definitely looking forward to coming back here next year."
Guenther Steiner: "Obviously it was unfortunate that Nikita's car had to stop with a hydraulic issue so he couldn't get to the end. I think once both of our cars got into the running it was respectable what was done. Obviously, we had the contact between the two of them at the beginning of the race. We all sat down afterwards, and my aim now is to work on it and we'll sort these problems out for the future."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Zandvoort, here.