logo

Gunther Steiner: Mick Schumacher can't keep crashing like this

Mick Schumacher has already wrecked two Haas team cars this year in heavy crashes in Jeddah and Monaco.

Gunther Steiner: Mick Schumacher can't keep crashing like this

Mick Schumacher has already destroyed two Haas team cars this year in heavy crashes in Jeddah and Monaco.

He also damaged his car badly when he collided with Sebastian Vettel in the final stages of the Miami GP.

The Monaco chassis is currently under repair, while Schumacher lost the use of the gearbox that was ripped out on impact.

"It is not possible to continue like this," said his team boss, Gunther Steiner. "And he knows that. He is also hitting a wall at some point. It's not healthy either."

"Obviously he wants to score points, and if you hit the wall, you don't score points."

"He knows that, so I don't put pressure on him saying he shouldn't hit. I don't do that. I never do that. Because I think they know they shouldn't hit."

"So I think there are a lot of things going on, but there is no simple answer. We need to see how we're going to move forward. There are a lot of things we have to work out now."

He added, "This is a very competitive sport. And it's easy to go a little bit over your limit and do a lot of damage, especially in Monte Carlo, here in Baku, Jeddah, Montreal, Singapore, and he just needs to adjust so he doesn't do what he did in Monte Carlo."

Steiner said that the accidents mean that the team has already passed its damage limit for the 2022 season.

"We passed that limit, we passed that in Jeddah. We are ahead of the damage spending allowance, I would love to be ahead of how many points we score, but we are ahead of damage spending."

But the team boss insisted that he didn't need to lecture Schumacher about damage costs, because it's obvious that this is not positive for the team.

"No, we talked about it, but I'm not going to explain to him how much or how I need to manage the team," he said.

"He reads what you guys write, so he comes to me and asks if it's really that amount of money. I said, I don't know, because I haven't said anything to anyone regarding amounts. So you have an estimate, but yes, it is this amount of money."

Steiner emphasized that while larger teams are concerned about the impact of accidents on the cost ceiling, with Haas the issue is what the team has available to spend on spare parts from suppliers Dallara and Ferrari.

"The budget ceiling is not the problem," he said. "The beat budget is the problem."

"Obviously, that's never a good thing to add, and the additional problem we have now is that the speed to make parts is getting harder and harder."

"At Dallara they work day and night just so we have spare parts here so we can keep going. Money is always a problem because you have to pay."

"You don't have five molds for fairings, you have one mold, and if you keep making it, it takes time. So it was a challenge, but Dallara does a very good job."

"Ferrari in terms of suspension helped us because we are also running low on suspension parts, because they can't keep doing that. And we can't keep spending a money we don't have."

"There's nothing that needs to be sacrificed. And we're still early in the season, so you're still hoping you can save elsewhere. But if you keep going like this, you end up without the time and money to make the savings."