"Battling with Max Verstappen" - Mick Schumacher on highlight of F1 2021 season

Haas F1 rookie Mick Schumacher feels that his battle with Max Verstappen at the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix was one of the highlights of the season for him.

Speaking in a video of the 2021 season highlights for Haas’s official channel, Schumacher said:

“Battling with Max was obviously one of our highlights, definitely one of my biggest highlights of the season.”

“We had a good race, good start, we were fighting in the top 10 for some time and had our best finish of the season there in P12, so just outside the points and I think there wasn’t much missing for us maybe to do the step into the points.”

“But we will have more chances.”

After winning the 2020 F2 championship, Mick Schumacher made his F1 debut this season with Haas F1 alongside F2 rival Nikita Mazepin. The team, however, made the decision not to develop their car this season due to financial difficulties. This meant that Schumacher and Mazepin, often the slowest cars on track, lapped significantly slower than the rest of the grid.

However, Valtteri Bottas’ mistake at the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix meant that several cars, including Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, were severely damaged. This led to the then championship leader being stuck behind several slower cars, including Schumacher’s Haas.

Now within points, Schumacher successfully repelled attempts from George Russell's Williams over several laps, with Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen close behind the latter.

Russell and Ricciardo, however, eventually managed to overtake the Haas and move into the points. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen initially struggled to pass the Haas in his severely damaged Red Bull, as Schumacher expertly positioned his car to block out the former’s attempts. A determined Verstappen finally managed to overtake the Haas with a forceful move into Turn 3 in the final part of the race.

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Honda’s difficult F1 years helped Max Verstappen’s title fight

Honda F1 boss Toyoharu Tanabe has revealed that the Japanese manufacturer went through initial struggles on its return to F1. This, in turn, helped it in delivering an engine capable of winning Max Verstappen the championship.

In an interview with Motorsport-total, Tanabe said:

“Max’s win in the Drivers’ Championship is a great achievement for us. We have been part of the sport since 2015 and had to go through a difficult seven years to improve steadily.”

“We were well behind Mercedes last year, but I am happy with how far we have come this year. We have been fighting for both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ titles.”

“Unfortunately, we didn’t win the Constructors’ Championship, but I think we got this far this year because we believed in our technology.”

Tanabe says that Honda and Red Bull “understood” each other and were very open about what they wanted. This was in contrast to their relationship with McLaren, with whom they initially returned to the sport.

“We understood each other. We were determined to do what we had to do to win.”

“We worked hard and developed our technology to win. It all came together; it was a great moment for us.”

Despite championship success with Red Bull and Max Verstappen, the Japanese manufacturer is leaving the sport after just seven years since their return in 2015. Red Bull will be taking over the Honda’s engine depart from 2022 and hopes to develop its own in-house PU for the new regulations in 2026.