The head of the Haas Formula 1 team Gunther Steiner believes that the departure of the son of Russian oligarch Nikita Mazepin from the team had a positive effect on Mick Schumacher’s progress this season. He stated this in an interview with The Red Bulletin,
KYIV. UkraineGate. 21. July . 2022 | World News .
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Mazepin was Schumacher’s partner at Haas last season, but his contract was terminated after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In early March, before the start of this season, he was replaced by Kevin Magnussen.
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“It’s the best thing that could have happened to him. He was very happy when I told him that we signed Kevin because Kevin is very cooperative. He cares about him, tries to help him when he can and doesn’t try to fight him. Mick is very lucky to have a teammate like Kevin. He can learn from him as a person, as a driver, by looking at his data. Mick is in a much better position than last year (when Schumacher’s partner was Mazepin – ed.),” said Steiner.
It should be noted that the relationship between Schumacher and Mazepin was quite tense. This was discussed in the Netflix documentary “Formula 1: drive to survive”. Unlike Schumacher, Mazepin could not show a decent result on the track and was constantly inferior to his colleague. In addition, the car of the oligarch’s son was repeatedly taken off the track. The pilot himself did not see his fault in the failures and blamed the team for everything. He said that Schumacher’s car was better and asked to replace his car. However, the team stated that both pilots are on equal terms.
Due to the failures of Mazepin Jr. on the track, the oligarch threatened the team’s management to deprive them of their funding.
Source: Ukrgate
