Schumacher dreamed of “far-fetched” Q3 appearance in F1 Turkey

The Haas driver starred in qualifying at Istanbul Park as he progressed into Q2 for just the second time in 2021.

Schumacher’s best time in Q2 was just over 0.5s slower than McLaren’s Lando Norris in P10.

Assessing his qualifying performance in Turkey, Schumacher said: “Yeah, definitely We got to drive this one, fortunately. So I was happy to do that and happy to be able to get the chance to even think about Q3. I know it’s far-fetched, but it would have been great to have that opportunity.

“The car felt great, we as a team did a really good job and I’m just really, really happy right now.”

Schumacher’s faint hopes of making Q3 were ruined when Lance Stroll went off at Turn 1, resulting in yellow flags.

Had it not been for Stroll, the German might have had a shot at Q3 given that the majority of the field progressed on the medium tyre, rather than the soft.

“Taking into consideration that George [Russell] had a mistake in the last corner and he was on a very good lap, I don’t know how much further I would have gone,” he explained. “But if I would have had my last lap, I probably could have improved by two or three tenths, not knowing how much the track evolution was but just by pure driving improvements.

“So I think definitely there was some in it. I don’t know if it was possible, Yuki [Tsunoda] just slid in with the C4 [soft tyre] but I think we were quite level with Yuki in Q2, so maybe it wasn’t that far after all but still, I think we just didn’t have the tyre at that time to probably do as big a jump as we were hoping for.”

Schumacher left it late to make Q2 - with his final lap in Q1 three seconds faster than Haas teammate Nikita Mazepin.

Speaking about the lap that got him into Q2, Schumacher explained: “We had one lap that we had left to try and make it. We know we had the opportunity because the lap before, I think, was not too bad. And I knew that there was still some time in it, because I wasn’t one hundred per cent happy with my lap before.

“But then that one lap that I had, I think we really managed to get the most out of it. And obviously, once we crossed the line and I heard Gary open the radio, and I heard the cheering in the background, obviously I knew things were good, and looked good. So I think, overall, we’re happy.”