Mick Schumacher continues to believe himself capable of being F1 champion
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Mick Schumacher (IMAGO / Motorsport Images)
As you likely know, with Haas choosing not to renew his contract, Mick Schumacher will not be competing in Formula 1 in 2023. Perhaps because of the timing of their decision, he was not able to pursue other avenues more fervently, but there’s no certainty that he’d have got a seat if they had chosen to confirm their decision earlier. In any case, he will still be in the paddock every race weekend – this time as Mercedes’ reserve driver.
It’s not easy to return to a full-time seat in Formula 1 – even if there are many examples in front of Schumacher, such as his former teammate Kevin Magnussen, or the man replacing him at Haas, Nico Hulkenberg. There’s Fernando Alonso and Mick’s father, Michael Schumacher but that is a different case, as both retired on their own terms. On the other hand, Mick was ‘forced’ out of the sport in the middle of his career.
But despite his current hardships, Schumacher has not given up on his dreams. Speaking to The Race, the 23-year-old German driver first affirmed that he feels that he deserves to be in F1: “Do I have the feeling like I deserve to be here? I would say yes because I have proven everything necessary to show that I can be quick, not only this year but also my previous years in junior categories. I am a Formula 2 and Formula 3 champion, I think people forget that right now.”
Secondly, he does think that he is capable of winning the world championship ‘in the right car’: “I’ve always proved myself in the sense that whatever category I’ve started in, I always got on top of it quite quickly. So I do have a feeling I can get on top of Formula 1 in the sense that I am capable of winning the world championship at the right time, in the right car.”
Mick Schumacher feels he has gotten top of race ‘management’
One of the reasons that Haas chose to go for Nico Hulkenberg instead of continuing with Mick Schumacher is because (according to Guenther Steiner) they believed they have a shorter route to where they want to be with the older driver and his experience. During this season, Schumacher crashed heavily twice in Saudi Arabia and Monaco, which cost his team a considerable amount of money.
But with time, he’s learned when to push and when to conserve, and ‘right now’ he thinks he’s gotten on top of this particular aspect: “With young drivers, you want to try and always be at the limit. That’s where you have to be to score points, and maybe if you have an experienced driver that’s been in Formula 1 for 10 years, he will be able to maybe do it a bit better and say ‘OK, do I need to push on this corner, what are the risks, what are the rewards?’ It’s just that management. And maybe because last year I didn’t quite have that in my mind yet, it took me a bit longer. But I feel like right now I’m pretty much on top of that.”
It’ll be interesting to see how Schumacher goes about returning to Formula 1. There is only a slim chance of a future full-time seat at Mercedes in the near future, but his current position as their reserve driver allows him to stay connected to Formula 1. There is some speculation of him returning with Audi (in 2026), but that is a long way off and it’s hard to say if he would be willing to wait that long.
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)