Mazepin wanted to avoid collision with Schumacher: 'Big risk there'

The Haas drivers are nowhere near points, but Sunday could have ended very quickly. Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin battled for a place, and that only just went right.

Mazepin and Schumacher are making their Formula 1 debuts with Haas this year, and it's not going to be easy. The Haas car is hard to drive and so the two mainly fight each other. In Monaco, they took that very literally on the first lap, when Schumacher wanted to pass Mazepin in the hairpin.

Mazepin avoids collision

''Yeah, it was very tight. It was one of those corners where it's even too slow for F1, you need to pull the clutch in, so you don't drive into a car in front. And I just got bunched up, and I had to stay where I was. And I felt that if you're fighting for P19 or for P18, and there was a big risk of leaving both cars for the rest of the race there, and I just didn't want to go to the garage and being responsible for it. So I wanted to race fair, and the race was long,'' Mazepin told Motorsport.com.

So Mazepin decided to give his teammate space and relinquish the spot. The race was long and eventually the Russian would get his spot back, as there were technical problems with Schumacher. ''I was very fair in the first lap. He was very fair later on. And I think we have a good relationship in the team, and we should keep it that way,'' Mazepin said of Schumacher letting him pass because of technical problems.