Schumacher doesn't see 2022 as his 'real second year' in F1

Mick Schumacher says he does not regard this season as his “real second year” in Formula 1 due to how different the 2022 cars are to last year.

Schumacher’s is enduring a difficult sophomore season after a solid rookie campaign in 2021, being one of only three drivers yet to score a point from the opening seven races.

While he secured his best finish to date at the season opener in Bahrain, a series of heavy crashes have since followed, including last time out in Monaco.

The German lost his VF-22 through the Swimming Pool section on a damp circuit, with the impact into the barrier splitting his car in two.

Explaining how the incident unfolded at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Schumacher admitted misplacing the car on a drying track led to a “really odd” crash.

“The whole track was quite damp at parts and some others were quite dry,” Schumacher explained, as quoted by RaceFans.

“We came a bit wide in turn 12, which cooled down the right-hand side, and then when going through chicane I actually took it easy for the conditions that there were and I just misplaced it a bit.

“I was just 10 centimetres on the wet patch, which then triggers a double wheelspin in that case because we have so much power, and that kind just threw the car into the half-spin. I tried to correct it and it goes off the other way.

“It was really odd because also the accident itself wasn’t in any way hard. To have it split in two again is quite unfortunate because obviously it’s a lot of damage in that case.”

Haas team boss Gunther Steiner was clear a “serious conversation” would need to happen if Schumacher continued to crash the car as the team will be low on spare parts.

Schumacher stressed he would “definitely” need to take this into account over the