– “We need to completely take the car apart before Markham so that this doesn’t happen again there.” – The frustration in the paddock around Mick Schumacher is palpable after the IndyCar race in Portland. Because there was clearly much more possible for the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver than 16th place. Really clearly.
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With a time loss of two to three tenths of a second per lap on the straights, Schumacher lost so much time on the short course in Oregon that without the problem he would have easily driven into the top 10. Because two tenths of a second would have easily promoted Schumacher into Q2 in qualifying. He was 0.344 seconds behind the best time of his group.
“Overall, it seems that for some reason we are still missing a bit of speed on the straights. I’m not quite sure what the reason is,” says the 27-year-old before addressing the team. “I think we need to completely take the car apart before Markham so that this doesn’t happen again there.”
The race was a tough battle for Schumacher with this disadvantage. However, he managed to implement an overcut strategy together with his still quite new race engineer Todd Malloy, which gained him several positions.
“At the beginning it was a bit difficult, but I think we made the right decisions regarding strategy. We tried to get clear track at the right moment – and we definitely succeeded. That is very positive,” he says.
He also took a strategic risk by fitting used soft tires instead of fresh hards for the last stint. The “Reds,” which had been the unpopular tire set all season, surprisingly worked well in Portland. However, he had already used his fresh set in the third stint and overtook, among others, Romain Grosjean.
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Hard-fought three-way battle until the end
He and Nolan Siegel then came back again in the last stint after they had fitted their fresh set of soft tires. Schumacher had to defend himself on the used set – and he did so brilliantly, as onboard footage from Nolan Siegel’s car published on X shows.
It can be seen how he blocks Grosjean so that Siegel can pass. When the McLaren driver tries to overtake Schumacher on the back straight in the next lap, Schumacher’s performance disadvantage becomes clear.
Siegel gets out of turn 7 onto the back straight much better. In turn 8, the full-throttle right-hander, he then has to lift because he underestimated the bumps and almost crashes into the wall. He then slips into Schumacher’s slipstream and builds up surplus speed so quickly that he surprises himself and has to lift again briefly. That saves Schumacher and Grosjean passes again.
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“I really pushed hard at the end to defend this 16th place. Ultimately, given the course of the season so far, we have to take every position we can get and make sure we get every point we can. I think we succeeded today,” he says satisfied.
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He also praises his pit crew, which has been criticized several times this year: “I am satisfied with the crew’s performance today. The pit stops were really good all day, and I am grateful for that. Now on to Markham.”
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