Mick Schumacher took to the circuit in a Formula 1 car for the first time on Tuesday and thoroughly “enjoyed” the experience.
Son of racing legend and seven time F1 champion Michael Schumacher, the 20-year-old clocked the second fastest time at the official Bahrain testing event behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
Schumacher was signed by the Ferrari Development Academy earlier this year and appeared comfortable performing in the famous red car.
“I really enjoyed today.” he told Ferrari’s official website. “It felt like home in the garage from the very first moment with a lot of people that know me since I was very young.”
Schumacher described himself impressed with the power, smoothness and braking capabilities of Ferrari’s SF90 car. “It seemed to me you could brake later and later and the car would have made the turn anyway.”
The German is the current Formula 3 champion and made his Formula 2 debut last weekend.
He is also set to test the Alfa Romeo F1 car – who Ferrari have a partnership with – on Wednesday.
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Schumacher had looked set to claim the fastest time during Tuesday’s rain interrupted testing until being pipped by Verstappen who clocked a lap of one minute 29.379 seconds. That was 0.6 seconds faster than Schumacher, although the Dutchman was using harder tires.
F1 experts often caution about lending too much credibility to test times.
While Schumacher will be happy with his first drive during a test event, his best lap was still more than two seconds slower than that which earned Charles Leclerc pole position in the Bahrain GP over the weekend.
