F1 | Styrian GP | Mick Schumacher asked Vettel to check his car because “I’ve been sitting in a crooked position since the beginning of the season”
The Haas driver asked Sebastian Vettel if he could look at something on his car. It seems that he had some issues with his seating position.
The French GP was just finished when cameras spotted Sebastian Vettel looking into the Haas car and having a deep look. It was that car’s driver, the young Mick Schumacher who asked his compatriot to give a look at it and – more precisely – at his seating position.
The four-time world champion is really close to Schumacher, as he was a keen fan of his father Michael, who also helped him out during the early years of his career. Now Sebastian is doing the same for his son.
Mick explained later that he has discussed before with Vettel about his seating position, as he felt uneasy on the lightly crooked angle of his single-seater so he “invited” the Aston Martin driver to see it himself.
The topic was discussed at the Styrian Grand Prix Press Conference and initially the Schumacher tried to avoid the question when Vettel told him “it’s fine, you can share”.
“Basically, I’ve been sitting in a crooked position since the beginning of the season, like the seat is central but I am not straight. – the younger German explains - We’ve actually been talking about it before, and I took the opportunity to show it to him, and just spoke about the seat.”
“I think he gave my mum the tip of maybe breaking it so I would get a new one sooner! But it didn’t happen in the end so I’ve still got the same seat for now.”- he smiled.
“It would have been difficult within a week to get a new seat, so don’t always follow the advice I give!”- Vettel replies just as jokingly.
“It’s very simple, I spent so many years racing and we spoke about the seat during the week last week. – the Aston Martin driver states then, in a serious tone. - There’s always small things you can improve a look at so I wanted to have a look – and we had a look.”
At this point, Schumacher adds that Haas is planning to change the seat, even if the problem is only secondary. “It’s me crooked in the seat, so it’s just about me trying to find the right position,” he explains “Not being symmetrical is something that I have to work on, but it’s hard to achieve within a short amount of time. It’s not as bad as maybe some might think. It’s a small offset, something that I’ve been used to also in junior categories. And to be fair, it doesn’t harm me in any way when driving.”
Mick's excited to drive an F1 car around the Red Bull Ring for the first time this weekend 🇦🇹@SchumacherMick's weekend preview here ➡️ https://t.co/aP3n80QPj6#HaasF1 #StyrianGP pic.twitter.com/t2CQS4dREJ
— Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) June 23, 2021
“It is something that for us is a secondary concern. – he points out. - It is mostly about trying to get everything ready for the weekend and being prepared on that level and maybe setting our focus on something else instead of wasting it on something that is maybe not affecting me right now. It’s something that is in plan, and we’ll for sure after the summer break come back with something that might be a bit more centred. We’ve been working on it in the beginning of the season quite a lot. We got to something which was comfortable enough for me to keep going. So, we left it with that.”
