It might take a long time for Mick Schumacher to stop smiling after today.
The 26-year-old German received his first taste of running on an oval in a private test at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Wednesday, running an all-black No. 47 Honda for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. He managed to log 97 laps on the day, with teammate Graham Rahal - who shook down the car - and driver coach Ryan Briscoe on-site to assist his acclimation to the 1.5-mile oval.
Although tire degradation was higher than normal, which led to the team running through all its sets and finishing early, the day ended up being fairly smooth as Schumacher was able to quickly find the limit.
“We reached it pretty early,” Schumacher told Motorsport.com. “With the car being quite high in ride height, the car was moving around quite a bit; it was loose in the rear. And then as we were making the changes, it started to just build a little bit more push. Overall, I think we had both extremes that you want. We had both understeer, heavy understeer, and we had both also quite a loose rear, which was great for me to experience to see how the car behaved in those moments.
“If anything, I would be much more confident and comfortable. Obviously, more comfortable with the understeer overall, which is just gives the most security and safety when driving. And now I just need to figure out what I can drive with, how I'm comfortable, and figure out also what the settings I like in the car.
“I think we've really achieved a lot today.”
One of the unique cockpit tools Schumacher had not previously experienced in his career, including his time in Formula 1 or the FIA World Endurance Championship, was the weight-jacker.
“The weight-jacker, itself, I felt like it was very interesting,” he said.
“I think it's a great tool to have for us and to use it. I got to play around with it quite freely and felt what the differences were like when having it on a certain setting and what changing it back to from going from right to left, for example. So that was good.
“Yeah, I think you can implement that really well into racing traffic or basically, driving on your own, same in combination with what the bars do.”
In preparation for his first oval test, Briscoe took Schumacher out on the track’s variable 18-20 degrees of banking in a minivan on Tuesday and shared some wisdom. Although he was able to lean on Briscoe, Rahal and others for advice and coaching, that isn’t what helped him settle in as much as everyone offering a patient approach.
“It was more of them telling me, 'Hey, we're not here to prove anything, we're just here to learn,'” Schumacher said. “That really resonated with me because that was the approach that I wanted to take.
“First day with a team, properly with the team and everything, you always want to maybe do something more. I think coming back to that mindset of like, 'No, actually, we're here to learn and we're here to do things right,' and approach them maybe in a cautious way really helped me to feel comfortable and go into today with less expectations and just be expecting to do everything at my pace. That's been really good today.
“Ryan's been great for that. Graham's been great for that. But especially the whole team has given me that feeling that we're in it together and taking our time.”
