Mick Schumacher says spray from a rival Formula 1 car was the main reason he crashed into the barrier after the first free practice from Suzuka came to an end.
Schumacher carried out a practice start after the chequered flag on the grid, and was returning to the pit lane when he lost control rounding Turn 7.
The Haas driver ran over a puddle of water that caused the car to aquaplane, resulting in a shunt with the wall.
The crash subsequently ruled him out of FP2 as Haas was forced to carry out a chassis change.
While Schumacher acknowledged that he lost tyre temperature carrying out the practice start, the 22-year-old says spray in the wet conditions was the primary culprit for his incident.
“For sure it wasn’t great that we lost a bit of temperature from the practice start, but it was more from we had a car ahead which threw up a lot of spray, hence we didn’t see much where to put the car,” Schumacher said.
“On top of that, we were in a mode which we tried to learn as much as we can from to be able to have all the right settings for the race on Sunday.”
The incident further called Schumacher’s F1 future into question, amid reports that he will depart Haas at the end of the 2022 campaign.
However, Schumacher denies that the crash has placed extra weight on his shoulders.
“Pressure is something that I’ve been dealing with for quite some time, I would say even all my life,” he said.
“I don’t mind that, but on the other hand, I always want to do my best. It doesn’t matter what happened before but we take one thing at a time. It’s now FP3 tomorrow and qualifying.”
Despite the setback, Schumacher has set a goal of reaching Q3 during Saturday’s qualifying session.
“We would’ve been P4 [in FP2] if not for the traffic we had in the last sector. So very promising, I think the rain really suits our car at the moment.
“I’m looking forward to the track tomorrow, it’s an amazing place to be in. Hopefully with the car that we have, we’ll be able to go into Q3.
“I think that’s going to be the target and then hopefully for the race itself some points.”
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