According to his team, Haas driver Mick Schumacher is “physically fine” after his violent crash in qualifying at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. Nevertheless, Haas confirmed that the German would no longer take part in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after the shunting stop.
Schumacher was circulating in Q2 when he lost the rear end of his Haas VF-22 after going over the curbs, the German being thrown violently into the wall – and the impact causing massive damage to his car.
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Schumacher was then taken to the circuit’s medical center and from there by helicopter to King Fahad Armed Forces Hospital for a “precautionary check”, according to an FIA statement.
But ahead of Sunday’s track, Haas confirmed Schumacher would not be taking over the start of the race, writing on Twitter: “Given today’s qualifying incident, Mick Schumacher will not be participating in tomorrow’s #SaudiArabianGP.”
The team later tweeted, “We can confirm that Mick has been discharged from hospital and returned to his hotel.”
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Haas also confirmed they would only field one car this weekend, driven by teammate Kevin Magnussen – who qualified P10 – rather than reserve driver Pietro Fittipaldi.
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Haas team boss Guenther Steiner meanwhile confirmed that he was in contact with Schumacher after the crash: “I spoke to him directly. He spoke to his mother, I spoke to his mother a few times and kept her updated.
“He has no injuries that you can see – they just wanted to check on him and do some scans to see there is no damage from the impact of the forces.
“Don’t take any risks tomorrow, that’s not possible,” added Steiner. “We’re in Melbourne in two weeks and it’s better to focus on that to make sure we’re in good shape there.”
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Schumacher later took to Twitter himself, posting a picture and writing: “Hi everyone just wanted to say I’m fine. Thank you for the nice messages. The car felt great @haasf1team we will come back stronger.”