Mercedes reserve driver Mick Schumacher has been praised for his role in the team’s recent upswing in form.
The 24-year-old, who lost his race seat with Haas at the end of last season, was name-checked by the team’s racers following their double podium finish in the Spanish Grand Prix.
Schumacher’s role at the team involves working in the simulator on Fridays during race weekends to hone the set-up of the W14s raced by Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.
While all teams have drivers performing similar roles, Mercedes chief Toto Wolff says being able to call on someone with experience of racing the current generation of cars is especially useful.
“First of all, it’s great to have a mature, successful and experienced F1 driver supporting us in the sim and with his feedback,” said Wolff. “That is a tremendous advantage on some of the European grands prix having him in the sim overnight, and providing data for the Saturday is a super advantage for us.”
The team also has the reassurance that if either driver was unable to race “then we know we have a super guy that would drive the car well” said Wolff. The team had to deal with that very situation when Hamilton caught Covid-19 in 2020 and Russell was called up from Williams to substitute for him alongside Valtteri Bottas.
Schumacher finally had the chance to drive the real W14 soon after the Spanish Grand Prix. The team remained at the Circuit de Catalunya in the week after the race for a Pirelli tyre test. Russell and Schumacher tested the latest generation of tyres under development by Pirelli.
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Given the focus of that test was to provide data for Pirelli, there was limited benefits for Mercedes beyond developing their understanding of the prototype versions of the tyres that may – subject to approval from F1’s 10 teams – be introduced in the future.
“He was I think very, very aware that the job of a driver in those circumstances is just to be a decent metronome for the tyre guys to make their conclusions about the tyres,” Mercedes’ technical director James Allison said of the test.
While Schumacher was criticised by his former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner for a series of costly crashes last year, Allison praised his professional approach to his testing duties. “Given that if we shunt the thing, that you’re actually paying for all the repairs out of the cost cap, it’s definitely [essential] not to shunt the thing!
“So he drove nicely, repeatedly, reliably, and gave us the platform for the tyre engineers to make their conclusions.”
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