Mercedes had the biggest shit in a decade. I don’t understand the end of Mick Schumacher, says Formula 3 driver Neusil

The Formula 1 season is over, with Max Verstappen in the Red Bull having secured the world championship title ahead of schedule and with obvious dominance. Even so, this year’s F1 season was interesting until the last race, which took place last weekend in Abu Dhabi. Czech Formula 3 driver Vladimír Netušil also looked back on the season. He says, among other things, that the performance of Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team was almost perfect, Daniel Ricciardo had a mental breakdown and Lewis Hamilton drove the “biggest piece of crap” in Mercedes in the last ten years. What’s more, he didn’t understand why Mick Schumacher was quitting Haas and F1.

Vladimir, in retrospect, how do you feel about this year’s Formula One season?

I liked the season a lot. There wasn’t one major plot, but there were a lot of different smaller plots. I think there was an above-average number of them compared to previous years. It made for something to watch right up until the last race, which was still a multi-million dollar race and several Constructors’ Cup and Drivers’ Cup finishes.

Looking at the past season for the first time, it looks like Max Verstappen was well out of step with all the other drivers. Was that the case from your point of view?

It’s mainly the car that’s bouncing. I’m not generally known to be a fan of Max Verstappen. I just don’t like him very much. But this year, he’s put in an almost perfect performance from a sporting point of view. I can hardly think of a weaker race, a weaker qualifying session, or a longer period where he didn’t do well. So regardless of anything else, it has to be acknowledged that what Verstappen has done this year has been near perfect.

But it is also true that the entire Red Bull team has had a near perfect season. It’s not just Max, it’s the whole team. In my opinion, it’s 50 per cent about him and 50 per cent about the team. I think both Max Verstappen and Red Bull had the best season ever.

Which F1 driver has disappointed you the most?

Repeatedly Daniel Ricciardo, definitely. He’s had the last year at McLaren and maybe his career to catch on. And maybe that will partly show in the next series of Netflix’s Drive to Survive, but I know from the F1 paddock that he’s definitely had a mental breakdown this year. So a very talented and skilful, but by some accounts overpaid driver, has become the biggest disappointment of the season.

You say Ricciardo has had a mental breakdown. What could have caused that? The pressure of the series? Or could it have come from the team?

I think his biggest problem this season was himself. Ricciardo had already crashed in the 2021 season and had the winter to reboot himself mentally. It was clear that either he would make it through the first 3 to 5 races of this season and emerge as a rebooted Daniel Ricciardo, or he would fail and not catch on again as the season progressed. Unfortunately for him, the second option happened. He didn’t catch on and will have a big problem returning to the F1 series as a main driver.

It was also reported that Lewis Hamilton had the worst season of his career..

I don’t think so. I think the car was very bad. And ironically, it’s a great shame for Ferrari that they had a galaxy better car than Mercedes, who were running the biggest piece of crap they’ve had in a decade, and yet Ferrari finished second just a few points ahead of Mercedes. As for Lewis Hamilton himself, he was not enjoying the first half of the season at all.

In the second half of the season, we’ve seen Hamilton as we know him from previous seasons several times. The whole difference was whether he was enjoying it or not. I even think that in the first half of the season he and Mercedes were considering Hamilton calling it quits. That he was really going to say he wasn’t going to drive that thing and walk away.

But if he wanted to leave in the best way, he should have done it at the end of last season. He basically couldn’t leave now because a lot of people would say he ran away like a coward when he didn’t have the best car. Well, then he sort of pulled himself together in the second half of the year. But looking at his personal performance, I don’t think it was the worst season of his career.

That brings us to an interesting topic, how much of Formula One is about the driver and how much is about the car. Can a good driver in a bad car do better than a bad driver in a good car?

Of course he can. But I would like to point out that the difference between the best and worst driver is not even a second per lap, but the difference between the best and worst car is three seconds per lap. In Formula One, we have the 20 best drivers in the world. For those at the tail end, we sometimes tend to say that they’re, excuse me, idiots and drive like apple trees. That’s not fair. And it’s not even true.

We have to remember that these guys have often won F2 or F3. So they’ve shown their talent in these lower series and just because they’re running somewhere like 16th or 18th in Formula 1 today doesn’t mean they’re bad. And while there are a few names out there that I’m personally glad are quitting, I’m clearly saying that even the worst driver in F1 is terribly, terribly good. Going back to the car or driver question though, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Because we mustn’t forget that the driver is involved in the development of the car. I often find myself thinking that those last few seasons when Lewis Hamilton dominated in a Mercedes, virtually anyone would have won it in the same car. That’s nonsense of course, and you also have to remember that the car was developed first by Ross Brawn with Michael Schumacher and then by Toto Wolff with Lewis Hamilton.

They and their teams made the car as awfully good as it was. It’s logical that they then reaped the rewards of their work and it’s not fair to say that everyone would have been world champion in that car. After all, look at how many teams there are that have good equipment and a top or very good driver, but still haven’t achieved similar results in several years. So yes, in general the car is maybe a bit more important than the driver. The question is whether success is 60, 70 or 80 percent about a good car. But it’s not nearly that simple.

Mick Schumacher is also retiring from Haas and Formula One. Will you miss him, or is he a driver who shouldn’t be in Formula One?

I’m sure I’ll miss him. I don’t understand why Haas hasn’t extended Mick Schumacher’s contract. And I think there’s something unsporting or personal about it. Mick’s been replaced by Nico Hülkenberg, who, unlike Verstappen, I like very much. Nico is a great sportsman and a gentleman. So I’m very happy for him, but I don’t really know why, after two seasons out of F1 and at 35, he’s replacing Mick Schumacher, who was getting better and better race by race.

I’m convinced that Nico will not do better than Schumacher. Personally, I will miss Mick Schumacher. I don’t think he’s as talented as his dad, no. On the other hand, there are five drivers worse than him. I hope if Ferrari threw him overboard, maybe Mercedes will catch him and give him a chance sometime in the future.

What role does Mick Schumacher’s surname play in his career?

It’s helped him, but it’s also hurt him throughout his career. That’s why he raced under a girl’s name until he was 13 or 14. The fact that the young Schumacher was racing was not publicly known until then. Everyone in the paddock was strictly forbidden to talk about it. And he was running as a girl on all the rosters. Sometimes it’s a great help to him in the media and in the pairs, but other times it’s a great detriment. There must be a lot of pressure. The commitment is huge.

And then, of course, there’s what happened to his dad. Actually, I’d like to say he has my great admiration no matter how many times he goes. With all that even his baby head has had to contend with, it’s incredible and admirable that he’s able to be on the grid and race at the highest level by some tenths of a second.

The new confirmed F1 driver, on the other hand, is American Logan Sargeant..

I knew of his arrival about three or four weeks before it was officially announced, when there were still various press reports that Williams hadn’t yet been selected. Frankly, Logan Sargeant’s arrival was paid for by the American people. The context is that Formula One is now owned by an American company.

This was previously reflected in the addition of two US Grand Prix to the series. But that wasn’t enough and they really wanted an American driver in F1. While Williams has long said that they want and will bet on an experienced driver to push the team, they also made some backroom deal with the promoter who was financially involved in Sargeant’s arrival.

Will there be even more pressure on Logan Sargeant since he’s an American in American competition?

No, there won’t be any pressure on him for the first two years. His huge advantage is that nobody expects anything from him now. That’s not to say that Logan Sargeant isn’t a top rider. He certainly is, he was one of the top finishers in Formula 2. But he’s young and he’s new, so everyone’s counting on him to break it ten more times. Just as he did and just as Mick Schumacher was accused of doing. But let’s remember how many times Max Verstappen broke it early in his Formula One career. And where is he today?

Vladimir Netusil is a driver and owner of Effective Racing, who this year drove in the EuroFormula Open (a Formula 3 level competition from where, for example, Max Verstappen was recruited directly into F1 in the past). He finds his own sponsors for the expensive season, having subsidised earlier seasons from his business. He is the fastest among Czech drivers on domestic and European circuits. Only Carlos Sainz, who now drives in Formula 1 for Ferrari, was faster in Most in the same car, and then only by a few hundredths of a second.

At the age of 16, he had a serious accident in a car driven by a friend. He died instantly. Vladimir was in a wheelchair for less than a year and it looked like he would never get back on his feet. At the age of 30, he decided to take the surplus money from his job in finance and make his dream come true. He bought a formula car and started driving.

Today he is 40 years old, but he still nurtures ambitions to get into F2 or even F1, where Fernando Alonso, a year older, is driving. When his racing career is over, he wants to run Effective racing. He is currently looking for a second driver, a young talent who could help him launch his career and take the stable into the elite.