Mick Schumacher is reserve driver for Mercedes next season. Image: imago/ nordphoto
formula 1
The drama about Mick Schumacher’s future dragged on for months. Will he stay with Haas? Does he switch to another racing team? Will he even find a buyer for the coming season? Finally, in November 2022, the news broke that the US racing team would not be renewing Schumacher’s contract.
Schumacher’s involvement in Formula 1 seemed to be over for the time being – until he was hired as a reserve driver at Mercedes just under a month later. At first glance a downgrade for the German as he will only race in this role if one of the regular drivers drops out. Nevertheless: With the job at Mercedes, he keeps the door open to a return to the field of drivers.
Nico Hulkenberg takes over Schumacher’s cockpit
Opposite the Formula 1 platform”GP fansThe Haas team boss now explained his decision: “It’s always difficult for someone who has driven for a team to be demoted to reserve driver. I don’t think he would be happy with that.”explains Günther Steiner.
Mick Schumacher (right) could not convince his former team boss Günther Steiner.Image: imago/ Laci Perenyi
After the 23-year-old became world champion in Formula 2 in 2020, Haas brought him to Formula 1. First Schumacher was a teammate of the Russian oligarch son Nikita Masepin, later of the Dane Kevin Magnussen.
While Schumacher made Masepin look old race after race, it was the opposite with Magnussen. The experienced Dane scored 25 points last season, more than twice as many as the German youngster with twelve. In the coming season, Formula 1 veteran Nico Hülkenberg will fill the vacant Haas cockpit.
Steiner would have found the reserve offer “cheap”.
Schumacher, on the other hand, has to hope for assignments at Mercedes behind Lewis Hamilton and George Russell as reserve drivers. Schumacher did not ask Haas about this role – and Steiner himself did not want to offer it to him either: “It would be a little cheap to ask him, ‘We won’t let you drive the car, but would you like to be a backup driver'”says the South Tyrolean.
At Mercedes, Mick Schumacher can learn from record world champion Lewis Hamilton. Image: IMAGO / HochZwei
But the job in the second row at Mercedes can also bring some advantages for Schumacher. The German racing team is significantly stronger than its previous employer Haas. In the simulator and the possible training sessions, Mick most likely has better conditions for further development at Mercedes.
More detailed insights into the Schumacher-Aus at Haas could possibly come to the surface in a timely manner. The fifth season of the popular series “Drive to Survive” will start on Netflix on February 24th – a series that has not been short of discord in the past.
Actually, the coach Oliver Glasner at Eintracht Frankfurt is more than satisfied. This is mutual. After all, the club wrote club history under Glasner’s leadership: In the summer, Eintracht won the Europa League. It was the first international success for Frankfurt in 42 years.
