20/11/2021
NEWS STORY
Uralkali Haas F1 Team drivers Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin qualified 19th and 20th respectively for the Qatar Grand Prix, Round 20 of the 2021 FIA Formula 1 World Championship at the Losail International Circuit.
Qualifying proved to be a challenging affair under the lights - both drivers ultimately exiting in Q1. Having missed the entirety of FP2 on Friday due to a chassis change, Mazepin's luck failed to improve Saturday as a technical issue sidelined him from the whole of final practice earlier in the day. The Russian entered qualifying with just 16 laps total to his credit - and a broken front wing on his first run in Q1 compounded his bad luck. A challenging third and final run, with traffic also being an issue, saw Mazepin clock a best lap of 1:25.859 for P20.
Schumacher fared slightly better although his opening effort in Q1, a 1:24.573, was deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 2. The German then posted a 1:24.048 on his second set of soft tires and with his third set he recorded a faster lap of 1:23.407 to claim P19 on the grid for Sunday's 57-lap race.
Nikita Mazepin: "I think I've done around 10 laps on a track that's totally new to me. What the team did to turn the car around in such a short amount of time - they've changed literally everything that's possible to change - was great. It was miracle work, it wasn't just my car crew working on it but also Mick's. It was very special from them, but it was a tough qualifying."
Mick Schumacher: "It's a fun track - I enjoy driving here and definitely night driving is something to get used to. We knew it was going to be tough but actually overall I'm quite happy. We maximized what we had from the lap time and matched our targets, if not even exceeding them a bit. There was always going to be traffic in the last corner, it's just the way the last sector builds. Everyone wants some temperature for the last corner but then nobody wants to give up a position, so we all stack. We managed it well as a team so I'm very happy about that."
Guenther Steiner: "A very good effort from the whole team to get Nikita out again after the trouble in FP3, in which they took the engine out and put back in again, changing the wiring loom and everything to do with the electronics. Obviously, it's very difficult to go out having only done around 15 laps over the weekend and then go out for qualifying. We got out and at least did a few laps. A very good performance from Mick, being very close to the people in front of us, closer than ever before. That was very promising, looking at the long-term future. For tomorrow, we try and get the best out of it from where we start."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Qatar, here.