Mick Schumacher, Haas, Bahrain International Circuit, 2021

Schumacher: F1 tyres let you “push hard”, unlike F2

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In the round-up: Mick Schumacher is relishing the opportunity to drive on Formula 1’s tyres, which he says are more robust than the Formula 2 rubber he is used tpo.

What they say

Schumacher said he “learned a massive amount of new things which were all positive” after his second run in the Haas during pre-season testing.

It really gave me a new way of seeing F1, also understanding driving on track. It’s quite a big difference to F2.

I have to say, I really enjoyed driving on those tyres. Especially the C2, it was very, very interesting to be driving on. Quite a hard compound and being able to push hard on them was quite different to Formula 2.

Obviously Formula 2 compared to the qualifying lap times you were six to eight seconds off every single time nearly, especially in 2019. So it’s kind of refreshing coming to those tyres, being able to push them quite hard.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

@Eurobrun sees a high potential for the racing at Jeddah Street Circuit to be disrupted by incidents:

The biggest irritant with this layout is its sheer length, combined with its lack of run-off. A single yellow flag will ruin qualifying.

Let’s ironically hope that the lap is long enough that no one gets lapped. With only 50 laps scheduled, a single (inevitable) Safety Car would likely steal 10% race distance from us.
@Eurobrun

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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26 comments on “Schumacher: F1 tyres let you “push hard”, unlike F2”

  1. Carlos Furtado das Neves
    20th March 2021, 2:19

    Watch out MSC.
    It’s another level of performance
    Be wary, but not be afraid to be with the best!

  2. Sorry but what a surprise, my eyes went roll, seeing that F1 tyres are « hard compound » and that drivers are « being able to push hard on them ».

    That’s the full opposite of what I witnessed over the last few years – when I say last few years, I remind from as long as Silverstone 213 to Silverstone 2020.

    These tyres allow one to operate them for just three full consecutive sectors.

    1. Have you seen F2? Those tyres do seem to be even worst that the ones used in F1.

      1. And yet the racing in F2 is great…

    2. I just smilled, if F1 tires are good…. How bad are f2 tires?

    3. The f2 tyres look like play doh.

    4. F1oSaurus (@)
      20th March 2021, 10:04

      @jeff1s In fact F1 seems to have more problems with the softer tyres right? While Schumacher is talking about one of the hardest compounds.

      The softer compounds seem to self-destruct in 10laps. Plus in some cases the hard compounds are in practice actually faster than the softer ones.

      So maybe it’s both right, the C2 can be pushed and will last a while. While the softer compounds never seem to deliver what they are promised to deliver.

    5. Coventry Climax
      20th March 2021, 13:34

      The surprise is people making the comparison between F2 and F1. For Mick, that’s all he can compare for now, but what counts is that all drivers (and team analists and such) in F1 say they can’t push on these delicate tyres and need to be taken very, very much care of. They compare F1 with F1, which makes a lot more sense.
      No offense to Mick, no offense to the journalists, but to those interpreting what Mick says.

  3. F1 Tyres … Lets see what his observations are a week from Sunday.

  4. That’s nice to hear Mick… But, next thing is, someone does the whole race on C2 tyres and just pits on the final lap to do the mandatory pit stop… If the hard tyres from previous years could last almost 80-90% of the race distance, imagine this year’s tyres, which are intended to be more durable than previous years’ compounds…

  5. Just finished watching first 2 episodes. Wow. Well done getting the adrenalin pumping on Lando’s last lap.

    And what a throwback to last March when there were Corona beer jokes and the ghostly empty offices. I think all of us have gone through these moments in the last year. Was quite chilling to see those moments.

    1. Third episode is fun though LOL.

  6. Not allowing spectator attendance in the Portuguese GP (if it indeed happens) is perhaps a good thing under the circumstances, given what happened last year when an unnecessarily great (for the COVID circumstances) amount of people got admitted over the weekend.

    Re COTD: The number of laps is irrelevant as it’s for the same minimum km reference, so no difference to the overall race distance irrespective of the track. Some will still get lapped without any neutralization. SC isn’t necessarily a given as the circuit might have similar things to Monaco that allow for a quick recovery of stranded cars.

    1. SC isn’t necessarily a given, in fact red flag more likely. This track is nothing like Monaco other than “Street track”. Blind corners at double the speed. We get SC or yellows running qualifying on tracks with massive run off where the “incident” is both visible and miles away. No chance are they allowing a guy to hop over the fence and attach a rope so they can “quickly” crane a car out of the way. The best we can hope is they maximise VSC as best as possible. It “should” be a long enough track to have a large enough gap between cars to allow work under VSC.

    2. @jerejj number of laps is hugely relevant. If a safety car is called, it cannot disappear halfway through a lap. If it’s not ready to be called in, it will stay out for a full extra lap. If there aren’t many laps in a race, then each extra lap is a higher %age of the total race distance lost to a SC.

  7. Spectators are unlikely to be allowed to attend the third round of the Formula 1 season in Portugal.

    Seems completely logical they allowed fans back in October, when Portugal had 4k cases, but now with 500 cases and numbers dropping massively due to flu season ending, it’s going to be held behind close doors.

    1. And then foreign fans come in where cases are much higher, mixing with the portuguese…

      1. Coventry Climax
        20th March 2021, 13:22

        Correct, @cdfemke. As far as I recall, the numbers in portugal increased dramatically when Antonio Costa (portugese PM) allowed for more easy travel around christmas and newyear, resulting in large amounts of portugese coming back from abroad, lots of ‘swallows’ migrating (british with a house in PT, but no residential permit, so with the need to go up and down frequently, and they saw their chance to refresh their paperwork as well as spread the british variant). The current situation is that PT is doing much, much better than the UK, US, Spain, France Germany, Belgium, Netherlands etc.
        So, it is unclear whether admitting people to the PT GP last year, contributed significantly to the increase in Covid cases.
        Keeping foreigners out is one of the rules taken to not make the same mistake twice, as is no attendance in football, weddings, etc.
        So, sorry @Armchair Expert, it is indeed the completely logical thing to do. And the figures in PT have no relation to the flu (different disease) season ending, but everything to do with serious restrictions after new year.

    2. @armchairexpert Weird indeed. At least one good thing comes out of this, and it’s no traffic problems.

    3. @armchairexpert the number of cases did not drop abruptly because of flu season ending, but due to a hard confinement that lasts already for almost 8 weeks. Schools were entirety closed, they opened last week but only for kindergarten and primary. It makes total sense to not allow spectators.

  8. It’s interesting Mick think the tires will let them push harder now as something Martin Brundle raised during the testing coverage last week which was something I also spotted was how slowly the drivers were having to drive when on the long runs & how much they seemed to be looking after the tires.

    Was more than a few times when drivers were cruising around so far off the pace that it looked like they were on in/out laps with lap-times 6-8 seconds off the pace of the faster laps which weren’t even full on attack qualifying laps at the time.

    I fear we are in for some extreme levels of tire management this year.

    1. But then again given how much of a joke the extreme bubblegum comedy tires often are in F2 I guess anything will look like an improvement.

      I used to love the GP2 series because it produced some of the best pure racing you could see anywhere. But sadly they copied F1 with DRS & the comedy tire gimmicks & I just don’t feel that the racing in F2 is anywhere near as good as it was before those gimmicks were introduced completely unnecessarily.

      Yes fine they can go on about high levels of passing but a lot of it just comes across as fake now due to DRS or extreme levels of tire-deg. You no longer see that quality racing & mega overtakes down purely to driver skill that you used to see in that series. It’s mostly easier DRS generated or because of huge tire performance differences created by the deg.

      Hence why I don’t watch that series live anymore, I just catch the shorter highlight clips on F1TV. It’s a shame as GP2 honestly used to be my favourite of the junior formulas & I used to watch all the races live which says a lot given how i usually am not so keen on spec categories.

      1. @roger-ayles Is there any racing series you do enjoy?

        1. I still enjoy F1 for the most part even though I utterly despise some of the more artificial & gimmicky elements such as DRS & high-deg tires that have crept in. And as i’ve said i’m also not fond of many of the upcoming restrictions.

          i’m just a very old school fan. i like technology, development & competition not just between teams/drivers but also chassis suppliers, engines, brakes, gearboxes, tires etc.. & i like the racing to as pure as possible. Things like DRS, cheese comedy tires, spec parts & things offend me to varying degrees as they go against a lot of the elements that drew me to, hooked me on & kept me hooked on the sport for the past 45+ years.

          I am not keen on how so many of the categories have gone towards been spec as I often find the totally spec categories to be quite dull given how everything looks/sounds the same with no interest from developments. It’s just not what i have ever really enjoyed & not what the sport really used to be about. Even the smallest of junior categories once featured more open competition & were interesting to watch from a technology & development standpoint.

          I just prefer that more pure racing. drivers able to push & race without some artificial element or gimmick making it feel fake which is what i think the high-deg tires & DRS can often do. I don’t like seeing a highway pass thanks to DRS or seeing some pass elsewhere simply because one drivers tires are newer & 3 seconds a lap faster, that just feels fake to me.

          I love the SPORT but am just not as fond of the ‘Show’ it has become the past 20-ish years.

          1. I concur with a lot of that.
            DRS is a ‘solution’ that didn’t even address the problem. The tyres are what they are, and are at least the same for everyone – all F1 needs to do is lower the demands on the tyres and they’ll naturally last longer and be less ‘gimmicky’ as you describe. Halve the downforce and that lowers the demands on the rubber.

            The move to spec is a particularly sorry state of affairs. It’s not a formula if everyone has the same thing – that’s a specification, resulting in a spec series.
            This is most obvious with the engine – why on earth would a (supposedly) technical development based series such as F1 mandate a single engine specification? But then allow most development to occur with the otherwise useless and irrelevant aero? Ridiculous.

            Sporting regs-wise – I have no issue with reverse grids because it doesn’t alter the racing, only the grid order. The fastest car/driver just needs to earn it where we get to see it – during the race. Same with SC over VSC – I don’t care so much for complete purity if it makes it boring and unenjoyable to watch.

            The biggest enemy in any sport for me is predictability – and F1 has it by the truck load. If I know what’s going to happen before it starts, why would I bother watching it?
            That isn’t sport, that’s a show.

  9. Funny how there are so many people refuting Mick’s comments. How many of these couch drivers have driven an F1 or F2 car outside of Codemasters games?

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