Almost halfway through it, Nikita Mazepin says his rookie year in Formula 1 is going very differently to how he expected.

The 2021 campaign has been far from plain sailing for the Haas driver, with him making a number of mistakes, upsetting others on the grid with his driving and usually being second best to his Haas team-mate Mick Schumacher.

Things have started to improve though, with Mazepin keeping things cleaner in recent times and closing the gap to the German, beating him last time out at Silverstone.

Reflecting on the first half of his rookie year ahead of the summer break, Mazepin admits it has not gone how he expected and would rather keep going to try and build some momentum than have a few weeks off.