Written by Owen Bradley, Edited by Simran Kanthi
Mick Schumacher is an enigma when it comes to racing. Historically throughout his career, he always takes a full season to get used to the car, the competition, and the regulations. This is what happened in European F3. He completed year one in the best way he could, as a learning year, and finished 12th in the standings. Nothing too impressive...yet.
It was his second season where he had eight victories (winning five races in a row at one point) and took home the Euro F3 World Championship. It was a similar story in Formula 2, as he took that first season as one to learn from, finishing P12 in the standings.
Once again, Mick would take the second year in his stride, winning the FIA Formula 2 Championship in Bahrain in 2020. Now, people were extremely excited to see the arrival of the Schumacher name back in the F1 paddock, and they got their wish when Haas announced that Mick Schumacher had signed with the team.
2021 was a difficult season in general for Haas, taking on two rookie drivers in Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher. Therefore, they were lacking that experience factor, one that is absolutely crucial at the highest level. It didn't help that Haas themselves were in a very difficult financial situation, having to take on Uralkali as a sponsor just to survive.
In 2022, Mazepin was forced out of Formula One due to political issues with Russia and the rest of the world. This led to the comeback of a hugely interesting and exceptional talent, Kevin Magnussen.
K-Mag returned and instantly performed in Bahrain, finishing P5 on his return. But his result sort of caused issues in the F1 fan base's opinion of Mick Schumacher and the validity of him taking up a seat in the pinnacle of motorsport.
Schumacher has been much better in the second half of this season, scoring points at the British and Austrian Grands Prix. Part of the reason he has only had two points finishes is that Haas is unfortunately still in the bottom two cars and bottom two teams.
However, with proven F1 talents such as Daniel Ricciardo available and seemingly out of F1 at the end of 2022, people do start to question the talent of Mick Schumacher and whether he even deserves to be in F1.
Of course, people like to throw around his surname and how it helped him get to F1. Perhaps it has, but not many can say they are points scorers in Formula One. It also doesn't help that Haas's strategy this season has been just as good as Scuderia Ferrari's at times.
Speaking of Ferrari, they are the power unit suppliers for Haas, and with the Ferrari engines seemingly struggling with reliability this year, it's no wonder that Mick has had to endure a tough couple of years in F1.
Perhaps it is for the good that Mick Schumacher is not renewing his contract with the Ferrari Driver Academy. Perhaps he needs to find another team, because currently Haas won't be able to take him anywhere, and it can only damage his career, if it hasn't already.
However, this is going to be tricky as most seats have now been filled by other drivers, so it seems he might have to stick at the lower end of the grid for a little while longer, provided he has a seat for next year. Let's just hope he can prove himself worthy of a drive toward the front.
What do you think? Will Mick Schumacher stay in F1? Does he deserve to be in F1? Let us know in the comments below!
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Good points... the challenge is as hard at the back of the grid as the front, if not more. Lots of the more obvious talent have had similar journeys to Mick, in terms of being quick but often accident prone. As they say, you can make a fast car reliable but its hard to make a slow car fast. Surely the same is true of drivers.
My sincere hope for Haas is that some kind of tie up or deal is done with the Andretti's to takeover, it seems logical to me. F1 really needs those guys in the sport urgently... partly because they would extend the fanbase rapidly and wave a US flag far more energetically than Haas has…
I hope Mick stays, out of the car he has been great, eloquent, honest and very open and happy to talk. In the car, he certainly hasn't been shown up by KMag, ok in the early part of the season I would imagine he was shocked at the performance increase that KMag provided over Mazespin, but as time has gone on Mick has closed that gap to the extent that on a few weekends its now not a dead cert he is outqualified. I would be interested to see data on Micks performance/gap in qualifying and races this year compared to last. Instinct says the delta to Pole or the Q3 cutoff is quite a bit less this year than…