Mick Schumacher finishes outside the top 20 in the first free practice session, but there is a glimmer of hope—Romain Grosjean and Marcus Armstrong crash
It was the rough start for Mick Schumacher and the entire Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team that had been expected, but in the end, one thing is clear: Mick Schumacher isn’t stuck at the back of the field this weekend.
In the first free practice session, he finished 22nd, just behind his teammate Louis Foster (RLL-Honda; 21st), who will make a guest start in a NASCAR Truck Series race at Lime Rock Park next weekend. (Results)
At first, things went as expected—it was difficult. Schumacher hadn’t tested beforehand and also has to get back in sync with a new race engineer. Furthermore, this marks the 20th consecutive IndyCar race at Mid-Ohio since its return to the racing calendar in 2007, meaning Schumacher’s experience gap compared to the competition is particularly large this time around without any preparation.
Consequently, the German could only manage last place in the 40-minute group practice session. His teammates also failed to finish higher than the bottom third of the field.
This session had to be interrupted once when Marcus Armstrong (MSR-Honda; 24th) went off the track in Turn 2. The New Zealander, who announced his contract extension with Meyer Shank Racing ahead of the race weekend, suffered suspension damage. He crashed into the Keyhole turn.
More spectacular moments came from Marcus Ericsson (Andretti-Honda; 8th), who took a memorable ride through the gravel trap in Turn 4, and Patricio “Pato” O’Ward (McLaren-Chevrolet; 5th), who spun out coming out of Turn 2. Overall, however, the Mexican seemed to be in good spirits.
As the session moved into the group phase, Schumacher looked much more on his game. As a rookie, he was eligible to start in both groups. In the first group, he delivered his most impressive performance of the day: He was the tenth-fastest driver on the hard tires.
Only a slight improvement for Schumacher on the Reds
In the second group session, there was another interruption just as Schumacher was about to try out the soft tires. Romain Grosjean (Coyne-Honda; 25th) crashed in Turn 9.
Schumacher then drove another fast lap on the soft, red-marked tires, which, in the hot temperatures of 32 degrees Celsius, only allow for one fast lap. His improvement here was smaller than that of most other drivers, so he remained in 22nd place. Foster was 0.249 seconds faster, and veteran Graham Rahal (RLL-Honda; 16th), who won the race in 2015, was half a second faster than Schumacher.
So it remains a somewhat modest start, but it’s worth noting that the situation isn’t hopeless either. After all, Mick Schumacher was holding his own quite well over the long run. The only area where things currently look challenging is in setting a fast lap. Since his fastest lap wasn’t shown on TV, however, it’s impossible to say whether there was a mistake in it.
The fastest time of the day was set by Will Power (Andretti-Honda; 1st) in 1:05.554 minutes, followed by Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti-Honda; 2nd) and championship leader Alex Palou (Ganassi-Honda; 3rd). Andretti, McLaren, and Palou made the strongest impression in the session.
After last year’s debacle, things are looking brighter for Team Penske this time around, although team owner Roger Penske is unlikely to be satisfied with ninth, tenth, and 13th places. Josef Newgarden (Penske-Chevrolet; 9th) is turning heads this weekend with a retro livery. It pays homage to Bobby Unser’s victory at the 1981 Indy 500.
