Ralf Schumacher says his nephew Mick was given a raw deal by Haas in last Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix as the US outfit's race strategy clearly favoured teammate Kevin Magnussen.
Schumacher was tenth in the running order when the race resumed with a rolling start after an early red flag. But when conditions improved and inters became the tyre of choice, Haas called in Magnussen for a switch and left Schumacher out.
As drivers peeled off into the pits, Schumacher gained several positions, but the German was quickly pushed down the order as he struggled on his full wet rubber.
He was eventually called in five laps after Magnussen as the last driver to switch to inters which ultimately sent him back to the tail end of the field where he remained for the rest of the afternoon while Magnussen finished P14.
"It wouldn’t be the first time that Haas made decisions that tend towards Magnussen and not toward Mick," Ralf Schumacher to Sky Deutschland, convinced his nephew had been purposefully disadvantaged by his team.
After the race, Schumacher agreed that his pit stop and switch to inters had come way too late in the race and had maybe deprived him of a top-ten finish.
©Haas
"Points were up for grabs and we didn’t manage to get them, but definitely the speed was there," he said.
"Our car is very strong, especially on inters, but unfortunately we put them on a bit too late.
"The fact that we were running P3 at some point, and even did our first leading meters in P1 is something positive."
Haas team boss Guenther Steiner acknowledged that his team's race management had been sub-optimal.
"We were caught on our backfoot with the strategy," he said. "We were too reactive and not proactive, and we ended up down the classification.
"It’s very difficult to make these decisions as we all know, and afterwards we’re always smarter with hindsight. We’ll review what we did and see that we do better next time."
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
