Haas tot up eye-watering cost of Mick Schumacher's Saudi crash

Haas believe the cost of Mick Schumacher’s crash at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix qualifying could be around $1m when all is said and done.

The Haas team have enjoyed a resurgence this season after using 2021 as an opportunity to really work on their 2022 car, and it appears to have paid off.

Indeed, Kevin Magnussen is already off of the mark in terms of points, whilst Mick Schumacher achieved a career-best 11th place finish at the Bahrain Grand Prix on the opening weekend of the season.

Last weekend, though, things were not as positive for his side of the garage as a big crash on Saturday cost him his place in the race on Sunday.

Pushing hard in qualifying, Mick lost control of his car and slammed into the wall at turn 11 of the Jeddah circuit, with an impact force of 33g and at a speed of around 170mph.

It was a terrible shunt, and there were naturally fears for Mick’s safety as his Haas car splintered all over the road, prompting a clean-up process that delayed the qualifying session by around an hour.

Thankfully, Mick was okay in the end with him going to hospital for precautionary scans, which came back clear, and he was back at the circuit on Sunday – but did not race with Haas opting not to use spares to repair the car and instead save them for Australia.

You can perhaps understand that call, too, when you hear that Haas believe the damage caused amounted to around $1m when all was totted up.

A hefty price tag, of course, but the main thing is the car did its job in keeping Schumacher safe and he’ll be looking forward to a first trip to Australia with the Formula 1 circus in just over a week from now.