Mazepin: Haas F1 has ‘different rules’ for Schumacher

Mazepin wanted to get past his teammate at Turn 5 shortly after the pair exited the pit lane after the red flag stoppage caused by Lance Stroll.

This led to an exchange between Mazepin and race engineer Dominic Haines, with Haas’ chief race engineer, Ayao Komatsu, having to interject at the end.

Mazepin to race engineer, Dominic Haines: “OK, I need to overtake him because he’s going too slow”.

Haines: “Negative, stay behind, stay behind please”.

Mazepin: “Are you having a laugh”.

Komatsu steps in: “I’m not having a laugh Nikita – if you want to make a space now, make a space now”.

After this radio message, Mazepin backed off significantly before setting his final lap of the session.

Mazepin’s frustration stems from an incident at the Dutch Grand Prix where he was ahead of Schumacher but the German was given permission by the team to overtake him, leading to a messy end to qualifying at Zandvoort.

Explaining the situation in Mexico, Mazepin said: “It’s a bit of an ongoing topic. Last time we had this was in Zandvoort, where it was said that there is a circumstance that might overrule the rule, which the other side of the team decided to use at that time. And at that time, I felt that it screwed my qualifying.

“So I felt like today, in a rushed case like it was, a teammate of mine had a free space in front and wasn’t going as quick as he could have, so I felt that maybe that’s what he needs for the tyres.

“I needed to go quicker in order to bring my tyres in and tried to get ahead but got a ‘no’. I respect the orders that the team gives me and stayed behind, so it’s not a big deal, it just seems like the rules are different on the sides of the team.”

Schumacher dismissed Mazepin’s complaints, saying “there’s no real reason to be upset”.

“I think that the team set out clear instructions and I think those instructions were held in from both sides, from my side,” Schumacher added.

“So I think there’s no real reason to be upset in any ways.”

Team principal Guenther Steiner clarified that Haas decided to stick to its original rule of not allowing drivers to overtake each other to avoid a repeat of what happened at Zandvoort.

“We discussed it after Zandvoort and we decided that we stick with what we are doing. In the end, Nikita finds himself in a better position than Mick because he had no traffic on his lap, and his tyres were up to temperature anyway.

“He asked the question, but the drivers don’t see what is in front because he maybe can go past Mick and then he’s stuck again. So why would we do it because then the risk is always that they race between them again like in Zandvoort? So we stop it before it goes to that.

“And that is the clear instructions we gave after Zandvoort. We have the whole field under control, we see them all in front and we see how many cars are in front. We know where you’re going to end up on your quali lap and if you race over the start-finish line, you mess a lap up.

“That is the way to deal with it and in the end it worked out good for both of them because we know what we are doing. I think it takes a bit of time, but they understand it.”