Mick Schumacher on how driving in "very bad" conditions felt at Suzuka circuit

Ferrari Driver Academy member Mick Schumacher started the Japanese Grand Prix at the Suzuka circuit from P15, but after a great first lap found himself in the top ten, managing to stay out of trouble despite the difficult weather conditions and the wet track.

After the race was restarted on wet tyres, Mick made progress through the field and even led the race for a very short moment, but Haas tried to gamble on a Safety Car which seemed certain given the wet track conditions, but that eventually never arrived and as a result Mick lost several places, having to settle for a place outside the top ten.

Asked about how it felt to race in the wet at the initial start of the Japanese Grand Prix, Mick Schumacher confirmed that the conditions were “very bad”.

“Have you ever driven on a road blindfolded? You don’t want to do that, right? That’s what we did,” the Ferrari Driver Academy member pointed out after the Suzuka event.

Asked about the decision made by the American team to stay as long as possible on the Wet tyre following the restart of the race, Mick Schumacher admitted that the deficit of performance from the extreme Wet compound in comparison to the Intermediate led to a lot of lost time and prevented him from fighting for points:

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“Obviously, we know that the extreme Wets don’t perform quite as good as the Inters,” he said – “We were hoping for a Safety Car, but it didn’t end up coming out, and so therefore we lost the chance of scoring points. We did have something to lose, we were in a points-paying position, so yeah, it’s very unfortunate. I don’t know if you can say that we didn’t react quick enough, because we did react to it as we saw people pitting.” – the Ferrari junior concluded.

Mick Schumacher’s teammate Kevin Magnussen also missed out on scoring points, finishing the Japanese Grand Prix in P14.