"Maximum I can give myself" - Haas rookie Nikita Mazepin rates his own F1 2021 season

Haas rookie Nikita Mazepin rated his first season in the sport of F1 as four out of five. The driver gave himself the score as he looked back on an underwhelming first year in the sport.

The Russian driver placed fifth in the F2 championship last year, graduating to F1 partly due to his father having a major stake in the Haas team. Unfortunately, the rookie was unable to finish on points even once in the 2021 season. Mazepin, however, is proud of sticking through the disappointing races he's had this season and gave himself a rating of four out of five this year, saying:

“I never think that you should get a five because five is excellence and I don’t know what excellence is. Today it might be excellent but tomorrow I realize I can do something more. So, four is the maximum I can give myself. So, I guess four for sticking through it because the times were really tough this year at certain points. Probably a three for adaptation, because that's hasn’t been my strong point and I keep improving on it.”

Mazepin struggled at the back of the grid all season. His only point of comparison was his team-mate Mick Schumacher, who outperformed him on almost every occasion. The Russian driver achieved an all-time career-best of 14th place at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

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Nikita Mazepin's rookie season featured all kinds of driver errors

Haas proved to have the slowest car yet again this season as both Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher failed to finish on points this year. The Russian driver making an awful amount of driver errors throughout the season only compounded the woes of the only non-European team on the grid.

The 22-year-old crashed just three corners into his F1 career at the season-opener in Bahrain, in what was one of his toughest moments. He said:

“I also made some mistakes like in the Bahrain race and some other events when I didn’t feel like I performed well or I tried too hard and then ultimately lost my lap time like in Brazil, when I believe that we had a chance outqualifying Williams or going into Q2. That was definitely one of the lowest moments.”

Nikita Mazepin is all set to return with Haas for the 2022 season with the team claiming they are confident the new car changes will suit them better.