Mick Schumacher will start 27th in the 110th Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge, lining up on the outside of Row 9 in a 33-car grid for Sunday’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing rookie became the fastest-qualified rookie after Caio Collet was sent to the rear of the field for a technical violation.
Schumacher, 27, said he and the team now have a clear sense of what they need to do to improve. “I think we have a good understanding of what we need to do to be better and hopefully come back through the field and go forward. I feel like I'm ready for what's to come now on Sunday,” he said.
The German driver’s Indianapolis build-up has been compressed into a fast-moving two weeks rather than the month many outsiders imagine. “Everybody has been saying like, oh, it is a month, but it’s actually just two weeks,” Schumacher said. “I was anticipating a lot more driving, but actually it’s gone by really quickly.”
That sprint has meant a lot of work behind the scenes. Schumacher said the team spent time testing different damper packages and air configurations as it tried to gather as much data as possible before race day. “We were working a lot,” he said. “We were trying different things, running a lot of different damper packages, different air configs, and really just to try to build as much data as possible, simply.”
The milk tradition that has long been part of Indianapolis 500 culture also reached Schumacher before the race. The driver, who was born and reared in Switzerland, said he had milked a cow before, including one that belonged to a friend’s family, and took part in the ceremony arranged by the American Dairy Association Indiana with Bertha the dairy cow.
The oval itself is still new ground. Schumacher has raced on street courses, road courses and one oval at Phoenix, but he said the Indianapolis Motor Speedway layout is different. “Yeah, the aero config is completely different,” he said. “The short oval is quite fast-paced.”
That challenge sits in the shadow of a family name that has already been linked with Indianapolis success. Michael Schumacher won on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course five times in Formula 1 competition, but Mick Schumacher is now trying to write his own chapter on the 2.5-mile oval. He said the Indianapolis experience has become the highlight of his season: “I’m very much now looking forward to the race,” he said. “I think that’s going to be the highlight of the year.”
The immediate task is simpler and harder at the same time. Schumacher must move forward from deep in the field if he wants to turn a rough starting spot into something meaningful on Sunday. Startaufstellung: Mick Schumacher debutiert im Indy 500 von Platz 27 can be found at
