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F1 pundit Sam Bird feels that Mick Schumacher's future at Haas is not quite favorable.
The German was in P10 when the Red flag was brought out in the F1 Japanese GP. During the restart, while every other driver pitted for intermediates within 2-3 laps of the restart, Mick Schumacher was not pitted, as the team gambled by keeping him out on wet tires.
Due to this, the driver lost out on a lot of positions and was at the back of the grid, thereby losing an opportunity to score points.
While speaking on BBC's podcast, Chequered Flag, Sam Bird talked about how the future does not look good for the German as he lost out on another points-scoring position. He said:
“Mick Schumacher got hung out to dry. It was a shame for him as this was a really important opportunity for him. He came in under the red flag in 10th place. Now if they’d just had a normal strategy he could have potentially showcased his talent and maybe brought home a point. And that would have been a huge thing for him to take to Guenther Steiner and say, 'Look mate I’ve got what it takes to stay in this team next year, I want the seat, it’s my seat.' But again not having a good result, it doesn’t look good for his future in Formula 1.”
Fellow panel member Jack Nicholls echoed Bird's thoughts and said that Haas did not need to gamble with Mick Schumacher's race at that point as he was in P10 and could have scored points for the team. He said:
“He wasn’t in a position where you take the gamble, you’re 10th – Mick Schumacher in the Haas – you don’t gamble.”
After the race, Haas team boss Guenther Steiner also admitted that the team messed up when it came to strategy for the drivers and hoped to put together a better result in the future. He said:
"We were caught on our backfoot today with the strategy. We were too reactive and not proactive, and we ended up down the classification. It's very difficult to make these decisions as we all know, and afterwards we're always smarter with hindsight. We'll review what we did and see that we do better next time."
Points were up for grabs: Mick Schumacher
Mick Schumacher admitted after the race that the gamble was a mistake. The German also revealed that he felt the points were up for grabs if the strategy had been correct. He said:
"Our car is very strong, especially on inters, but unfortunately we put them on a bit too late. The fact that we were running P3 at some point, and even did our first leading meters in P1 is something positive. Points were up for grabs and we didn't manage to get them today, but definitely the speed was there."
The German's future hangs by a thread at the moment and it will be interesting to see when Haas announces its lineup for the 2023 F1 season.
