Mick Schumacher hopes to repeat his junior category trend of making big steps in his second season in Formula 1.
In both European F3 and F2, the German won the championship on the second attempt, as he used the experience gained in his first year to make strong gains.
Though any thoughts of becoming F1 champion in his sophomore season are farfetched, Schumacher wants to continue the progress he made in 2021 with Haas, even if he isn’t sure exactly how.
“As an approach for 2022, there will definitely be more to expect and I also expect from myself,” he said via Motorsport Week.
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“Hopefully, I will be able to make the step as in the past but I am not quite sure of that. Let’s get the year started and we will find out along the way.
“I think that the preparation will be different in the sense that I know what’s expected of me.
“I have a clear view of what I need to do and obviously, I think the preparation will adapt and change. In what ways, I can’t tell you because I will figure that out as I go.
“I don’t think there’s a clear and strict plan but it’s more of what I feel that I need to in that specific moment to be ready for the first year in that new concept of a car.”
Explaining what improved the most during 2021, Schumacher highlighted the relationships between himself and his Haas team.
“We’ve grown even closer together and I know everybody working here so well now and I feel that we’re all having a very good time, and frankly that’s all the sport is about,” he said.
Last testing, last session this year with the team. It’s been such an incredible year of learning and growing, with the best group of people. Thank you @haasf1team, I’m so excited for our next season together? #MSC47 pic.twitter.com/0Yv6OCXSB0
— Mick Schumacher (@SchumacherMick) December 15, 2021
“It’s about enjoying working. Everyone is here because they love the sport and they have a passion for it.
“That’s just something that definitely helped me progress in so many different ways but also made me grow as a person so I am hoping next year will be an even bigger step.”
Haas also sacrificed last year by putting all their focus and resources into this year’s new regulations in the hope of making big strides up the grid.
“Hopefully we’ll be in that position where we can fight for points every weekend,” Mick told Crash.net.
“From what I see and from being involved in this, I do have the feeling that we are in a good position.
“How good? We will only know in Bahrain at the first race, but we have this attitude next year that we know we’ll have updates coming our way, we will be developing the car and all of those things that we haven’t had this year.
“So we know that if there is a problem, we can fix it next year.”