Schumacher lost control of his F1 Haas car that was passing through the pool pool after switching to dry tires at the Monaco Grand Prix, which caused it to spin.
After hitting Armco on the right side of the track, Schumacher’s car crashed into the Tecpro barrier at the corner. The rear of his Haas F1 car separated from the rest of the chassis, including the suspension and gearbox, but Schumacher himself quickly reported that it was fine.
Schumacher got out of the car unassisted and was taken to the medical center as a precaution before being evacuated and released quickly. He later explained that the accident felt “super strange”.
Race director Eduardo Freitas initially ordered a virtual safety car before moving on to a full safety car. Subsequently, the race was marked with a red flag to allow the barriers to be repaired.
Several riders expressed surprise at seeing the crash site after the race. Pierre Gasly of AlphaTauri said he looked “bad” and worried about Schumacher, and made the right decision to throw a red flag.
“When I saw the gearbox completely out, it was pretty shocking,” Gasly said. “For the red flag, it took a while, but it was right. I was a little surprised that we had a VSC and not a safety car right away. But I have to check the race, it was quite long, a lot of it happened things “.
Mick Schumacher, Haas VF-22 crash
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Fernando Alonso of Alpine described the accident as “massive” and said he hoped F1 could “learn something from today”, noting how the weight gain of cars has an impact on accidents.
“I don’t think it’s a car problem, it’s how hard you hit it,” Alonso said.
“With these cars, they’re very heavy, over 800 kg, so the inertia going into the wall is much bigger than in the past. Like I said, we’ve probably learned something from today as well.”
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Aston driver Martin Sebastian Vettel has been a mentor to Schumacher for much of the young German’s career, having benefited from the advice given by Schumacher’s father, Michael.
Vettel said he was “happy to hear on the radio that he was fine before he got to the incident,” and called for Schumacher to slow down a bit.
“It’s so easy to get it wrong so quickly,” Vettel said. “I don’t know exactly what happened to him, I haven’t seen him. The most important thing is that he is fine.
“There’s no doubt he’s capable of doing a lot more than he’s showing right now. But I think you need to give him some rest.”