It wasn’t the braking that seemed weird to Mick Schumacher in his first oval test.
It was the not braking.
The former Formula 1 driver made his first laps on an oval Wednesday when he tested at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The INDYCAR rookie had a couple of road-course tests in his new Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing ride but had not yet been on an oval.
Lifting off the throttle going into the turn rather than hitting the brake was not natural for Schumacher.
“Going to a corner without braking was a very new thing,” Schumacher said. “So, the first time I got to corner, I did have a little tap on the brakes. … That was one thing that I had to get used to approaching the corner still being pretty much flat-out going into the corner and then bleeding off as you go into it.”
Schumacher has two more tests prior to the season opener on Mar. 1 at St. Petersburg. Several teams will test Monday and Tuesday at Sebring to get ready for St. Pete. Then there is an open test for all teams Feb. 17-18 at Phoenix Raceway, where the series will race Mar. 7, the day prior to the NASCAR Cup Series event.
The son of seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher, Mick Schumacher said the key at Phoenix will be being with other cars on the track.
“This has been really good for me to kind of go ahead and go in there with more of an understanding to how oval racing will be and how oval driving will be, essentially,” Schumacher explained.
“I’m very curious to see how it’s going to be with the other cars on track and feel that dirty air and the washout that we’ll get from it and stuff.”
It was good for Schumacher to get some time alone on an oval to understand how it feels. For someone who has never driven on an oval before, even the basics are new.
“The orientation was a bit of a difficulty at the beginning — kind of knowing what side of the track I’m on, which corner I’m on and in at the moment,” Schumacher noted. “After that, you kind of get the hang of it, obviously it’s, it’s very new to me.
“I think we got a pretty good hang of it. It can only go better from here.”