Mick Schumacher says he’s discovered it simple to adapt to IndyCar given how shut its chassis is to what he remembers from Method 2.
The previous Haas Method 1 driver is making his IndyCar debut on this weekend’s season-opening spherical.
“It’s an F2 automotive, simply with higher tyres,” stated Schumacher, who received the Method 2 championship in 2020. Each collection use single-specification chassis provided by Dallara, however IndyCar makes use of Firestone tyres whereas F2 automobiles run on Pirellis.
IndyCar has used a model of its present DW12 chassis since 2012 and is because of introduce a brand new mannequin in 2028.
“I really feel like if we bumped it up with like possibly 100 or 200 horsepower extra and saved the load down a little bit bit, I feel that’d be fairly good,” Schumacher instructed Off Monitor with Hinch and Rossi. “And I suppose that’s sort of the transition that the long run automotive goes into. So that will be fairly enjoyable to see.”
Schumacher lapped only one second off the quickest tempo set by Scott McLaughlin within the opening apply session at St Petersburg, although that left him twenty third within the 25-car discipline.
His transfer into IndyCar marks a return to single-seater racing for the previous Ferrari Driver Academy member. After dropping his F1 race seat with Haas on the finish of 2022, Schumacher raced for Alpine within the World Endurance Championship till final yr.
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He stated he started to take an lively curiosity within the collection in 2024. “You grew up studying about it and listening to about it, however it was by no means actually one thing that I’d comply with super-closely as time zones and stuff have been fairly tough to match it up with what I used to be doing anyway on the time,” he stated.
“[Then] the entire scenario with F1 turned a bit extra sophisticated. Increasingly groups have been reaching out to me [when] I used to be clearly nonetheless within the trajectory of getting good conversations with F1 groups and [my] hope was nonetheless there to sort of return.”
Schumacher confirmed his transfer to the collection with RLL final November. He says the championship feels extra “uncooked” in comparison with the collection he raced in beforehand.
“Now coming over right here, you be taught a lot extra intimately what it really means to be driving an IndyCar and the way robust it’s and difficult it’s but in addition how enjoyable the championship is in itself. The folks listed here are simply wonderful to work with, they’re actually bold on the racing facet of issues.
“It feels very very like a uncooked motorsport surroundings, which is uncommon to search out in some locations and I felt like right here it was actually simply apparent that that was the sort of factor that was occurring.”
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