Through no fault of his own, Mick Schumacher was forced to retire from the IndyCar Series season opener in St. Petersburg, driving the #47 RLL Honda. As the son of Formula 1 legend Michael Schumacher, his U.S. open-wheel debut was eagerly anticipated by fans.
The crash occurred in Turn 4 of the very first lap during a major braking zone. Schumacher had started in 21st place and was unable to avoid an accident between Sting Ray Robb (Juncos-Hollinger Chevrolet) and Santino Ferrucci (Foyt Chevrolet).
According to initial replays, Robb braked too late, preventing Ferrucci from turning in. Those two cars slammed the barrier nose-first, and Schumacher had no chance to avoid. Schumacher's car actually climbed atop Ferrucci's rear wing, coming to a rest on top of the other car.
Both he and Ferrucci were unable to continue, while Robb was issued a 30-second stop-and-go for avoidable contact.
In an initial interview with FOX, which had to be cut short due to audio problems, Ferrucci was harsh in his criticism of Robb: "It's a 100-lap race with three stops. Everyone has different strategies. There's no reason for such maneuvers in the first lap."
"Can I maybe reverse this thing out of here?"
"I think we really needed this race to get ourselves completely sorted out and go into the next race with no doubts," said Schumacher. "But hey, we still have 17 races to go, it's only the first one, it's only the beginning. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the season."
Immediately after the crash, when his Dallara-Honda came to a stop on top of another car, Schumacher initially thought about continuing the race. "To be honest, my first thought was: 'Can I maybe reverse this thing out of here?,'" he said with a smile.
"But then the safety car arrived faster than expected, the engine was turned off, and the AMR people got me out immediately."
Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Lumen via Getty Images
Schumacher sees the most important lesson of the weekend is the fact that he got caught up in the chaos at the back of the field mainly because he started there. He believes the trigger was his poor qualifying performance.
"We're now looking at what we could have done better," said Schumacher. "Qualifying was one point. We were obviously got blocked, lost momentum, and missed out on a better group. The consequences followed promptly on Sunday, as there is little room for error at the back of the field.
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"It's racing. When you start at the back, there are always moments when you go into a corner with three or four cars side by side. That in itself is a risk. The most important lesson for us is that we need to qualify further up the grid. It's as simple as that."
Despite retiring after less than a lap, the German remained optimistic. He is convinced that the RLL car would have delivered much more than its qualifying position suggested.
"We had a good car that could probably have taken us far up the field. We were quite confident with our strategy and excited to see what the others would do," he says, referring to the untapped potential.
He now wants to build on the knowledge gained: "I'm happy with the insights we gained this weekend. We'll now put that into practice in Phoenix. We're looking forward, not back. There are still many races ahead of us—this was just the beginning, and I'm very excited about the rest of the season."
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