Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s (RLL’s) Mick Schumacher had an IndyCar debut to forget at the 2026 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Pete. The 26-year-old was extremely unlucky as he got taken out on the first lap.
Mick Schumacher on the incident that ended his debut IndyCar race at St. Pete
Starting P21, the former Haas F1 driver was looking to avoid trouble on the opening lap around the streets of St. Pete. However, he would end up in an incident.
Juncos’s Sting Ray Robb headed down into turn 4 and had a massive lock-up on cold tyres, hitting the tyre barrier. In the process, he sent Ferrucci into the fence as well, with Schumacher unable to avoid the #14. It was game over for both. Robb would serve a penalty for avoidable contact.
Schumacher says it was a shame how short his IndyCar debut was, lasting only four corners at St. Pete.
“I saw Santino lock up and I wasn’t aware that there was another guy on the inside locking up. Sting Ray seemed like he went a little deep deeper than what was supposed to be and that led to a chain reaction unfortunately.
“Our real target was to finish the race, get in all the laps that we wanted. We got even less than that so. It’s very unfortunate.”
Feeling safe
Schumacher also praised the AMR Safety Team after initially hoping to keep going in the IndyCar St. Pete race. Once again, they were on the scene in seconds following the crash. They continue to be a benchmark in Motorsport safety.
“I thought I would reverse this thing out of here, but the safety team jumped on a bit quicker than that and the engine was off. The AMR (Safety Team) pulled me out right away. That is one thing I have to say, the AMR (Safety Team) is doing an awesome job, creds to them. They were there instantly and that really good to know and feel that you are always supported whenever something happens.
“We wished we could have kept going; We had a decent enough car to drive and probably drive up the field. We felt pretty confident that we were on a good strategy and were interested to see what the others were going to do. From our side we were keen to getting this race going.
“That’s racing. It’s very unfortunate.”
Missing out on valuable IndyCar mileage
Having done some testing at IMS (2025), Sebring and Phoenix, the German driver got some laps in before the season.
Nonetheless, there is nothing like a race situation to really learn about the car in dirty air, on old tyres, doing fuel saving and much more. He missed out on 100 vital laps on Sunday afternoon.
“As a team we really needed that race to get everything sorted and not have doubts going into the next event.
“But hey, we’ve got 17 more races to go. It’s just the first one, it’s just the start of it and I’m very excited for the rest of the season.”
Mick Schumacher on positives to take from St. Pete
As has been the case throughout his career in single-seaters and endurance racing, Mick Schumacher was looking for the positives from his IndyCar debut weekend at St. Pete.
Although he was only P11 in Round 1 Group 1 qualifying, he was very competitive. Schumacher was 0.3s away from rapid teammate Louis Foster. Due to the close nature of the series, seven spots separated them as the Brit advanced.
Now, the goal is to keep learning and try to progress. He faces his first oval race at Phoenix this weekend.
“I’m still happy about all the knowledge we gained throughout this weekend and things we can definitely take forwards and take to Phoenix now.
“I’m looking ahead, not looking back and will try and understand what we could have done better on our end, qualifying maybe being one of them; we were blocked and we kind of lost a bit of our momentum and (the possibility of) being in a better pack maybe.
“Always when you’re starting in the back things end up being difficult and tough anyways, but I think this just made it extra difficult for us.”
