Nikita Mazepin rates himself out of 5 in debut F1 season

Nikita Mazepin rates himself out of 5 in debut F1 season

Nikita Mazepin

Nikita Mazepin formed a new look Haas team this year, partnering with another rookie, Mick Schumacher in 2021. The latter had won the F2 Championship in 2020, whereas, Nikita Mazepin had finished P5 in F2 standings last season.

Both Haas drivers failed to score a single point in the 2021 season, as their car was nowhere close to compete for the top 10 positions. Nikita Mazepin’s best finish came at the Azerbaijan GP in June, where he ended on the 14th spot.

Despite not scoring a single point in 2021, Mazepin gave himself four out of five stars for this debut season. The Russian added that four is the maximum score he could assign to himself for getting through all the struggles in 2021. The Haas driver gave himself three stars for adapting to Formula One, which is quite different and tougher than F2.

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“I finished school four years ago and that’s the last time I was receiving marks and I don’t really miss it so much. I never think that you should get a five because five is excellence [as in Russian school marks are from 2 to 5], and I don’t know what excellence is. Today it might be excellent but tomorrow I realise I can do something more,” said Mazepin as quoted by Autosport.

“So four is the maximum I can give myself. So I guess four for sticking through it because the times were really tough this year at certain points. Probably a three for adaptation, because that’s hasn’t been my strong point and I keep improving on it,” he added.

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Nikita Mazepin highlights the low and high points in 2021

Guenther Steiner
Mick Schumacher, Nikita Mazepin

Nikita Mazepin accepted that he did make a few costly errors, starting from the first race weekend in Bahrain. The Russian exceeded track limits during the qualifying session in Brazil, which saw his lap time being deleted. The rookie believes that Brazil GP was probably his best chance to edge into the Q2, ahead of the two Williams cars.

“Then I also made some mistakes like in the Bahrain race and some other events when I didn’t feel like I performed well or I tried too hard and then ultimately lost my lap time like in Brazil, when I believe that we had a chance out-qualifying Williams or going into Q2,” said Mazepin.

Nikita Mazepin then went ahead and spoke about a few good races he had this season. The Haas driver believes that he had good races in Silverstone, Brazil and Mexico. “That was definitely the low moments, but the high moments is a… many races. I had a good race in Silverstone, in Brazil and Mexico,” said Nikita.

Nikita Mazepin has certainly not driven up to his true potential this season. However, one cannot be tooo harsh on the Russian given that he drove for one of the most poorly developed car in F1 this season. The pressure of being a rookie alongside Mick Schumacher also contributed a bit to his struggles.

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