LEBANON, Tenn. — Futility was no longer part of Mick Schumacher‘s vocabulary as the NTT IndyCar Series rookie scored the first top-10 finish of his IndyCar career in Monday’s (July 20) Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway.
“The pace has always been good enough for the top 10,” Schumacher said. “To actually put it out on track, I think, is a great achievement, but I knew that that was possible all along. It’s not like it just, you know, happened over, like we got lucky or whatever.
“I think it was just, you know, we were consistent on the communication, we had no issues in the pits, it was really just a nice solid race and that’s the kind of result we can expect from us.”
After starting 16th in the 25-car field, the Swiss-born German moved up to 13th place by the race’s eighth lap, remaining in that position until pitting under the yellow caused by Caio Collet‘s wall contact in turn 4 on the race’s 17th lap.
When racing resumed on lap 31, Schumacher, who had dropped to 14th on pit road, managed to move up to 12th around Louis Foster and Christian Lundgaard, who had not stopped for new tires under the yellow for Collet’s incident.
The No. 47 Rahal Letterman Lanigan (RLL) Racing Honda moved into the top 10 for the first time on lap 61 and briefly ran in third place before his second pit stop. After settling in just outside of the top 10 for much of the race, a little luck went Schumacher’s way.
Rinus VeeKay, Santino Ferrucci, Scott McLaughlin and Kyle Kirkwood all pitted under green before Dennis Hauger hit the wall in turn 2, bringing out the race’s final caution period as the Norwegian rookie spun into the pit entry road near turn 3.
All four drivers that pitted were ahead of Schumacher on track before their stops and were trapped a lap down until the leaders pitted under caution, elevating Schumacher to seventh place before his final scheduled pit stop on lap 185.
A slow stop by Nolan Siegel‘s crew then elevated Schumacher, Kyffin Simpson and Pato O’Ward up a position for the restart on lap 194.
Schumacher turned his fastest lap of the race on lap 201 but fell to eighth place in the final green-flag sprint to the checkered flag, finishing within a second of O’Ward in seventh and just under nine seconds behind race winner Alex Palou.
“I think even higher (position) was possible; we just, you know, we’re a bit cautious with some of the high line stuff,” Schumacher said. “I saw a lot of people go high and wash out and I had one of those moments too in the race. So, I just wanted to make sure that we stay in the race and score the points that we deserve, so that’s why I think P8 is a solid, solid finish. But yeah, I think there’s much more in it.”
The race was originally scheduled to run Sunday afternoon following the World Cup Final match between Spain and Argentina. However, a combination of the match going into extra time and torrential rain meant that the 300-lap race would be moved to Monday afternoon and would be shortened to 225 laps owing to the intense heat.
With intense conditions and a track that had all the rubber washed off of it from the IndyCar and Indy NXT sessions, Schumacher had to adjust his car frequently to compensate for the rubber going onto the concrete surface and the track temperatures.
“The car was changing pretty much lap by lap, so it was hard to adjust to it because the car had one way of feeling when I was alone and then a totally different feeling once we were in traffic,” Schumacher said. “I mean, we spent most of the time behind people, it just showed that we had the pace to technically be in front of them, but just didn’t get around [them], you know. I think the car was just not quite good enough to use the high line consistently, but nonetheless, to come out here, it’s one of the fastest short ovals on the calendar and to do this well here shows the potential that we have.”
The sentiment was shared by Schumacher’s race engineer Todd Malloy. Malloy, who is also RLL’s head of race engineering, started working with Schumacher at the most recent IndyCar race at Mid-Ohio and has decades of experience to help guide the rookie.
“It was really good,” Malloy said of Schumacher’s pace. “I mean, his feedback’s good, right? And so we were able to make some changes in practice. I got the car in a better window and he was comfortable and he did a lot of homework. You know, he watched a lot of video, looked at a lot of data and you could tell he was ready.”
In his first oval race, Schumacher qualified fourth before a pit stop issue dropped him down the order. Being the highest finishing rookie at this year’s Indianapolis 500 helped Schumacher garner Rookie of the Year honors and the 27-year-old was the highest finishing RLL driver at the most recent oval race at World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis. Ovals have suited Schumacher’s skillset well.
“I can usually tell pretty early if drivers are going to adapt well to the ovals, and I could tell right away with Mick that that was … I mean, you saw in Phoenix, right?” Malloy continued. “So yeah, the way he drives is very smooth, which is helpful on the ovals, honestly. And his feedback is good. He has a good feel for the car, so yeah, it was all good.”
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.
Nice to see Mick have a good race. Hope he continues to improve.
Agree. I have been surprised at just how much he’s struggled, although as the article notes, some of this isn’t on him. I really thought he and Hauger would both over-perform their equipment, which hasn’t been the case. Hauger has shown some signs of his potential, but not at all consistently.