Mick Schumacher believes that he may have had the pace to catch George Russell during the Portuguese Grand Prix, but was stuck behind Nicholas Latifi for too long.
Schumacher delivered an impressive drive in the Haas to finish 17th, well clear of teammate Nikita Mazepin and ahead of Williams man Latifi.
The rookie also outqualified Mazepin for a third consecutive occasion, during what was probably the young German’s best race weekend since making his Formula 1 debut earlier this season.
However, Schumacher still came away from Portimao with a tinge of disappointment given that he was unable to get further up the road in order to challenge Russell.
“It was a challenging race and unfortunately overtaking is quite difficult around here,” he said. “It was tough for us lap after lap having to follow close-by, especially in the midfield where we were quite strong.
“Being that close – you just burn up your tires and obviously then it gets difficult. Eventually we pushed the Williams into a mistake, then we kind of had a free run and were able to show our pace. If we had cleared Nicholas (Latifi) earlier, I think we could maybe even have had the pace to catch up to and fight with George (Russell). Overall, we wanted a clean race and to see the checkered flag. We managed that and everything went well.”