Schumacher left fuming by Haas: ‘Battle with Hamilton shouldn’t have happened’

Schumacher spent the majority of the F1 Sprint behind teammate Kevin Magnussen in seventh and eighth.

The pair looked like they were working tactically together with Magnussen giving Schumacher DRS and thus he was able to keep Sergio Perez and Lewis Hamilton behind for a number of laps.

Perez ultimately got through into Turn 3 as Schumacher was compromised into the aforementioned corner by his teammate before losing out to Hamilton in the closing laps.

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The German was visibly annoyed after the sprint race after missing out on his second F1 points finish.

Schumacher felt he was quicker than Magnussen and should have been allowed to overtake his teammate.

“I think it’s something to be discussed. The battle with Lewis was fun but in the first place, it shouldn’t have happened,” Schumacher said after the sprint.

“So, something to have a look at it, maybe for my understanding, why we did not switch the positions. Because I felt like I probably could’ve attacked Esteban [Ocon] ahead.

“It’s quite incredible to be fighting with Mercedes and a Red Bull. Again, I think there was more in it.”

The German’s decision to follow Haas’ team instructions ensure Magnussen was able to finish seventh and secure two crucial points for the team.

Haas team boss Guenther Steiner thanked Schumacher over team radio after the 24-lap sprint race but didn’t receive a reply.

“In some ways I was saving his butt from the attack of Lewis,” Schumacher added. “I was actually hoping that he would drop back, which then did not happen. So, that kind of left me then vulnerable, with no DRS.

“I knew it was going to be tough, 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.”

Magnussen was unaware of the discussion about team orders between Haas and Schumacher.

However, the Dane was pleased with the team’s turnaround following a lacklustre showing in second practice.

“I don’t know. I obviously can’t hear what Mick says,” Magnussen said. “It’s a great day for us! We got two points. We’re starting P7 and P9 for tomorrow’s main race, we really can’t be disappointed with this in any way.

“I thought we had a problem this morning, the pace didn’t seem good and the balance seemed off. We made some changes but we were limited because of parc ferme. We can’t actually change the setup, we can change the front flap and some system side [things]. The balance came back and we found a whole lot of pace compared to this morning. Very happy.”

Steiner explains why Haas didn’t swap

Steiner has explained why Haas didn’t swap their drivers during the sprint.

“No because it wouldn’t have worked, because he wasn’t faster because obviously you are faster because you are in DRS, we spoke about this before the race,” Steiner explained. “I explained to them it will be if you can come out after the start behind each other the second one thinks he is faster because you are 0.9s of a second faster because of DRS effect but that doesn’t make you faster because as soon as you go in front the other one is 0.9s faster, then as soon as you let someone by with Lewis so close he would sneak by as well and then get us after.

“We monitored very well if he was faster or not, we’ve got a guy in the corners just doing that as a full-time job, so we monitored everything and we did the complete right thing because otherwise we would have gone out of the points with both cars or maximum maybe only achieved one point.”