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Mick Schumacher has questioned his Haas Formula 1 team’s handling of the sprint race at the Red Bull Ring, believing he should’ve been moved ahead of team-mate Kevin Magnussen.
Schumacher spent 17 of the first 18 laps of the sprint within a second of Magnussen, with the only exception being the lap when he was being passed by the charging Red Bull of Sergio Perez.
Once under attack from the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, however, Schumacher dropped out of Magnussen’s DRS range while in battle – and Hamilton was able to pick him off for eighth place, and the final sprint race point, with two laps to go.
A somewhat flustered Schumacher described the battle with Hamilton as “fun” but one that “shouldn’t have happened in the first place”.
“I think that in some ways it probably wasn’t quite necessary, because I think I had more pace to be in front,” he reiterated.
“So, something to have a look at it, maybe for my understanding, why we didn’t switch the positions.
“Because I felt like I probably could’ve attacked Esteban [Ocon] ahead [for sixth place].
“It’s quite incredible to be fighting with Mercedes and a Red Bull. Again, I think there was more in it.”
Schumacher believes a swap with Magnussen would’ve been “doable without losing any time”, and says he requested to swap “a few times” but was turned down.
Magnussen felt he’d found “a whole lot of pace” compared to the Saturday morning practice session, and felt it was “a great day for Haas”.
“We really can’t be disappointed with this in any way,” he told Sky Sports F1.
Another point of contention for Schumacher was that his request for Magnussen to drop back once Schumacher was under attack from Hamilton, and make sure to keep his team-mate in DRS range, went apparently unheeded.
“In some ways I was saving his butt from the attack of Lewis,” said Schumacher. “I was actually hoping that he’d drop back, which then didn’t happen. So, that kind of left me then vulnerable, with no DRS.
“I knew it was going to be tough [to fight off Hamilton], especially when then my tyres kind of wore off. But I felt that his tyres were also not in the greatest shape anymore, and also his energy level didn’t seem great.
“So I was actually hopeful that I could come back. But then, yeah, obviously his energy recovered and my tyres didn’t and I was still under attack from Valtteri [Bottas] behind.”
Asked whether he’d have kept Hamilton behind had he remained in DRS range of Magnussen, he said: “Yeah. For sure.”
Schumacher has been summoned to the Austrian GP stewards over “messages to driver during the second formation lap”, which they say may have constituted a breach of Article 33.1 of the F1 sporting regulations. Those state that the driver “must drive the car alone and unaided”.
