The 2021 season received 3 rookie drivers, Mick Schumacher among them.

Gary Gannon, Mick Schumacher´s engineer, said to the-race.com how important it is to stay calm to improve the communication with the driver:

“It’s difficult and I don’t think I always have it right, I’m learning with Mick and in general when to intervene and when not to.”

“One race, in Barcelona, we had a suggestion from the previous run. I gave it to Mick very late in the back-off lap and we both concluded it was too late. That information, however valuable it may have been to give us 0.2s by doing a line differently, was too late and disrupted his lap.”

“So it is learning with him how quickly, how late I can give him input and how he can process it.”

“We’re constantly learning what the right level is with any driver, but with Mick this year in particular.”

This year Haas hasn't obtained any points due to the lack of pace, but Mick´s improvement is showing, in the Hungarian GP he was able to fight with more experienced drivers like Max Verstappen and George Russell.

annon also talked about the different scenarios Mick has to experience so he can learn more.

“The surprising thing is the scenarios he hasn’t experienced before.”

“Before the season, we had a huge list of the experiences that we have built up over the years with Kevin, Romain and the other drivers and we tried to go through all those and present them to him.”

“He absorbs all kinds of information, he’s a really good, quick learner but still we encounter scenarios in the race where he hasn’t encountered them before and doesn’t know what to expect. Afterwards, you go ‘ah, if I told him that, things would have gone better’ because sometimes you only have this moment to take advantage of a situation.”

Mick also has showed consistency on the track, reaching Q2 in France.

“Mick is so good at studying and doing his homework, if you give him another chance he will very much improve if he’s made a mistake or missed an opportunity or if we didn’t give him the right aero balance.”

“Even in the first race in Bahrain, when he had to do the blue flags, his lap after was quicker than his lap before. He has only improved through the season.”

“His overall awareness, attention to detail and focus throughout the race allows him to maximise those scenarios. It takes a lot of concentration to keep doing these perfect laps every lap, then have these blue and get back to that perfect lap. It is impressive that he’s able to do it.”

“He is trying to extract the maximum performance out of all aspects, whether it is managing tyres, blue flag laps, the outlap, first push lap of the race, starts.”