Schumacher's self-criticism doesn't "depress" Haas rookie

Haas chief race engineer Ayao Komatsu is impressed with how Mick Schumacher's self-critical nature serves as "extra motivation" rather than 'depressing' the rookie.

Schumacher provided Haas with its season highlight so far in the recent Turkish Grand Prix with a Q2 appearance, leading team principal Guenther Steiner to declare the German has "big potential" in F1.

Despite his pace, though, the season has been mixed for Schumacher who has also been involved in a number of practice crashes that have jeopardised his qualifying ability but Komatsu explained the 22-year-old is his own harshest critic.

"Mick works very hard, whether he has a good weekend or a bad weekend and he is very self-critical, in a good way," said Komatsu.

"He is always looking for areas to improve. When he is talking about 'I have done this wrong, I need to improve,' it doesn't actually depress him, it just gives him extra motivation.

"He is always looking at himself as well as other things he can influence. So it is very good, all the hard work that goes into it.

"He works very hard with his engineers so again, Mick's engineers are really motivated by Mick's attitude as well so it works both ways."

Schumacher is ahead of team-mate Nikita Mazepin by virtue of his 12th-place finish in Hungary and has finished ahead of the Russian in 14 of the 17 races this year.

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