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A race win for Mick Schumacher in his first year in Formula 1 is virtually unattainable, even points will likely remain the exception. The situation at the Haas racing team is however suitable for the newcomer. Especially since he already knows his job.
Mick Schumacher doesn’t know anything else. If you think about motorsport, you simply cannot ignore this legendary surname. Formula 1, Benetton, Ferrari, seven times world champion. When Michael Schumacher got into his racing car, the Germans sat in front of the television and gave RTL one record audience after another.
At the time, market shares of 50% or more were not rare, but the rule. And not just for pure performance, after all, sport is always a little bit of storytelling. How the Kerpener moved to Ferrari after two world titles with Benetton and brought the deeply fallen Scuderia back to its former glory. To a domain that Formula 1 has never seen before.
So it makes sense that (public) attention is enormous when the son of this legend follows in his footsteps. After all, he is promoted to Formula 1, eight years after his father retired, who finished his 307th and final race in seventh place at the Brazilian Grand Prix on November 25, 2012. “It’s great to be in the same sport. that we love so much “, said Mick Schumacher, who used to run his first kart races with his mother’s maiden name as Mick Betsch:” that the time has come, that is crazy “.
Losing is almost impossible
The 21-year-old is unlikely to cause a stir on the track. For several reasons. The most obvious is that Mick Schumacher stands for Haas, whose team leader Günther Steiner recently described the prospects for 2021 as follows: “We can only win because we basically can’t be worse than we are now.”
The South Tyrolean is planning a transition year as Formula 1 has radically changed the regulations for the 2022 season. Haas hopes to never finish over the points for good. For longtime RTL journalist Kai Ebel, however, this is not a disadvantage, but perhaps also an advantage “not being directly in a top team”. Why: “The pressure is not that great.”
Schumacher is also generally modest when he says that the first thing to do is “how quickly I get used to Formula 1”. Because this period of adaptation is a constant in Schumacher’s career: in the junior series he usually needed a season to orient himself and then he drove for the title in the second year, which he is now very close to in Formula 2.
“It takes two or three years”
“This is why Haas represents logical development,” says Ebel. Schumacher will likely be the number one driver there, because his future teammate and current Formula 2 competitor Nikita Mazepin brings a lot of sponsorship money along with his talent. His father is the majority owner of the Russian chemical company Uralchem, his fortune is estimated at several billion dollars, and he is considered a generous supporter of his son’s career.
As Haas therefore relies on two newcomers to Formula 1, Schumacher is missing a fixed point, as Kimi Räikkönen would have done when he switched to Alfa Romeo. Such an experienced driver could have passed on to him the characteristics of the premier class of motorsport, which Schumacher must now develop in another way. Who in turn is considered a strength of the 21-year-old, Ralf Schumacher recently attested to his grandson a “very promising learning curve”, considered a meticulous and hardworking worker.
Franz Tost, Alpha Tauri Team Principal, has a similar opinion. The racing team was still called Toro Rosso until last season, where Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen received their first regular cockpits. Tost is “convinced that Mick will also drive successfully in Formula 1”. But not from the start, says the Austrian: “It takes two or three years for a new driver to know where Formula 1 is going.”
No comparison with Max Verstappen
Ebel also appeals not to overload the third Schumacher in Formula 1 with high expectations: “Give the boy time, he must grow up”. On the one hand because the Haas racing car is one of the slowest on the field and on the other hand because it is not a child prodigy like Max Verstappen, who made his debut in 2015 at 17 and in 2016, at 18, has become by far the youngest race winner in history.
Schumacher’s connection with Verstappen is that his fathers – Jos and Michael – once not only competed against each other, but were teammates at Benetton in the 1994 season. In a joint interview in 2002 they also spoke of what it would be like if their children had a similar career aspiration to theirs – and Verstappen predicted: “If they decide to race, they will definitely compete against each other.”
While Max Verstappen has already surpassed his father’s career successes, who never surpassed tenth place in the drivers’ standings, the obstacle for Mick Schumacher is much higher. After all, his father has not only won seven world titles, but also aroused unexpected enthusiasm for Formula 1 in Germany. Kai Ebel, who accompanied this euphoria in the 1990s as a pit lane reporter for RTL, therefore advises: ” You shouldn’t compare him to your father “and instead” let him go his own way “.
No boring stories
So Mick Schumacher himself noticed it with surprising calm for a 21 year old: “This attention was always normal for me”. Although this attention will certainly be multiplied in Formula 1 compared to the lower series. “It’s clear I’ve been in the spotlight since I was a kid,” he said after Haas announced his signing. Schumacher seems to know very well how to deal with what is happening around him.
And yes, the story of the son, who follows in the footsteps of his famous father, is a story worth telling. One that is often sought after in sport, only in Formula 1 there are several outstanding father-son duets: Graham and Damon Hill, Gilles and Jacques Villeneuve, Keke and Nico Rosberg. But that’s exactly what works quickly, that is, with effort. Then when it repeats too often or when there are actually new events that it would be much more exciting to report than to tell the old story for the umpteenth time.
But Schumacher only knows that this is part of the process of writing his own story. Just to get into Formula 1, to get one of the 20 places currently so coveted, is a great achievement. So the 21 year old feels “well positioned” “with the experience I have gained in recent years”. And that he himself much prefers to accept the challenge that Mattia Binotto, Ferrari team boss, in whose junior program Schumacher has matured: “The task was to improve and make progress”. This now also applies to Formula 1. But Mick Schumacher already knows this.
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