Schumacher: “I was very pleased with Saturday”

Mick Schumacher will be the first to hold his hands up and admit that 2020 hasn’t gone to plan so far, with a mixture of misfortune, and by his own admission, mistakes, playing their part in a below-par start to the campaign.

One thing that hasn’t been missing is pace. Schumacher has proven himself as one of the quickest on the grid so far this season, with PREMA providing him and his teammate Robert Shwarztman – a winner in the Feature Race - with a much-improved package.

Schumacher’s pace was evident on Saturday, when the German ended up just a tenth of a second away from a podium finish, crossing the line narrowly behind third placed Guanyu Zhou, despite starting the day in P9.

“I was very pleased with Saturday,” he explained. “Especially with the second set of tyres, because I could push a lot and I had some good overtaking moves.

“Unfortunately, the race was one lap too short, otherwise it might have even been a podium finish.

“It was not quite a photo finish, because I knew I was behind when we crossed the line, but there wasn‘t really much space left between us. The team has done a great job over the winter and improved our package a lot.”

Schumacher’s weekend had gotten off to a disastrous start: he crashed out at the beginning of Free Practice, which put him on the backfoot for Qualifying, without the 45 minutes of experience that the rest of the field enjoyed.

Despite this, the German picked himself up, dusted himself off and used this as a motivational tool for the Feature Race.

“There‘s no alternative to that, to be honest” he continued. “If you allow these things to annoy you for too long, it will only compromise your performance.

“You have to learn from mistakes, but also be able to leave them behind and focus on what lies ahead.”