Mazepin insists "misunderstanding" with Schumacher was 'not an incident'

As Schumacher went to overtake Mazepin on the final lap of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the Russian veered slightly right, nearly putting his teammate into the barriers on the run to the start-finish line.

“What the f--- was that, honestly?” exclaimed Schumacher on the radio in Baku. “Seriously, does he want to kill us?”

Schumacher managed to get through to secure 13th - a result that moved Haas above Williams in the constructors’ championship.

Reflecting on the last lap in Baku with Schumacher, Mazepin clarified that because the pair did not come into contact, there simply was “no incident” in his opinion.

“Well I would like to be very direct,” Mazepin said. “I think the wording there isn’t quite right, there was no incident, both cars returned to the pits with front wings and the paint job was as polished as it was just before the race.

“So I’d like to look at that in a pretty positive way. I think we’ve had a bit of a misunderstanding between us, and obviously going into your last lap into a pretty hectic race, which is not the first one this year, but I haven’t seen many times the race being stopped, I thought he would choose the inside line, but he chose the outside line, but when I saw he committed to it I backed out of it because in the end we’re not fighting for any points and the team result is the priority for me.”

Schumacher revealed Mazepin apologised to him following a meeting afterwards with team boss Guenther Steiner and chief engineer Ayao Komatsu.

Explaining his opinion on the incident, Schumacher explained: “Well there was a meeting right after the race. A meeting between Gunther, Ayao and Nikita, which obviously they talked about the incident, they called me in, we spoke about it together and he did after seeing the video apologise for it, so on that sense we’re all fine.

“Obviously in the moment it was rather, well, confusing, in a way because I was not expecting it at all, especially between teammates. I understand it was the last lap, we’re all fighting, but if you come in such a tow you have, all what is left in terms of battery, and use everything, there is no stopping, and the only way you stop someone is by scaring him or pushing him into the wall and obviously he tried to do that.

“I in fairness kept my foot down and got by him anyways but as I said it was unexpected from my side and that’s why I had such a strong reaction afterwards. But as I and the team said the air was cleared afterwards and it’s a fresh start from here.”

Mazepin was later asked why he apologised to Schumacher given that he felt there was no incident to apologise for.

“Our discussions that go on within the team I believe should stay with the team,” Mazepin added, however, if it was already brought out I would just say I apologised to him if that’s how he felt, and he clearly was very upset, but I would say it is very important that he doesn’t expect to have it too easy and I’m never going to not block for whatever reason, or one another, but I clearly didn’t expect him to be where he ended up being, and if he felt the way he did I said sorry because that’s what I think I should be doing, however it wasn’t for my particular doings at that time.”