MICK SCHUMACHER
How Schumacher Jr is settling in to Haas and Formula 1
Guenther Steiner puts his hands behind his head, leans back in his chair and looks to the side. The Haas boss needs a few seconds to think, as he’s tasked by
GP Racing to describe his new German driver using three adjectives. “Focused,” he says, returning to his initial sitting position, before adding: “Hard worker. It’s not an adjective, but I can use that, huh?”
Then comes another pause, an even longer one, as that last one has to be spot-on. Steiner looks to the side again, then turns back and says confidently: “Smart.”
Yep, Guenther, that fits. Here’s a fun fact – the evening after his first Formula 1 qualifying in Bahrain, between the media interviews and engineering debriefings, Mick Schumacher occupied himself with an activity many smart people enjoy: playing chess.
It was no one-off. Chess has been a part of Schumacher’s race weekend routine since his early days in junior categories. Mick usually plays against a fellow named Kai Schnapka. The physio from Leipzig worked with Michael Schumacher during his final years in F1, and for the last few seasons has accompanied Schumacher’s son at races.
“I’m probably not that good, but I kind of beat him,” the junior Schumi laughs as he tells GP Racing of his chess skills. “Let’s say it like this. It is just to keep myself busy and entertained. Other than chess we have also backgammon, we have card games. I feel like these games [are] kind of just bringing the focus back, as you always have to be switched on with your mind. In a weekend, I always want to be mentally ready for every challenge that comes
my way, not only driving, but also if the team needs me. I need to be right away ready to answer difficult questions. You never want to miss a situation because you’re not ready for it.”
Mick readily agrees he’s probably a better racing driver than chess player, but strategic thinking is definitely not a weakness of his. His junior single-seater career has progressed like a perfectly executed chess game.
A good player would never go for an early attack without making sure he has the pieces in place to support it. When Schumacher won the European Formula 3 title in 2018, he’d earned enough superlicense points to go straight into F1 – and his surname could’ve opened doors right then and there. But in spite of the recent examples of Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll, Mick favoured a move to F2 first. Presumably, that’s because simply making it to F1 wasn’t the junior Schumacher’s goal. He wanted to be as ready as possible when he got here.
“Obviously, F1 was my dream,” he recalls. “But when I was in F3, F1 felt so far away in a way. I think I wasn’t probably as ready as I am now. I’m happy I made the step into F2, because it gave me the time to learn different ways of working, not only on the car, but also in the team.
“Being able to win the championship last year proved to me that I’m able to gather all the information I need to always be one of the top drivers. If I carry that through my career in F1, I’ll be able to improve even more each year.”
Modern F1’s testing restrictions definitely factor against newcomers, but in Mick’s case he was as ready to move up as he could’ve been. Under his belt were not only two years in F2 and a title, but many hours of work in Ferrari’s simulator. Schumacher also got the chance to drive a real Ferrari F1 car, and an Alfa Romeo, as well as last year’s Haas.
Over the last decade, there has hardly been a driver better prepared for their F1 debut than Schumacher Jr – and yet Mick’s arrival hasn’t gone smoothly. In Bahrain he spun right after the Safety Car restart; at Imola he overdid it with tyre warm-up during another Safety Car period and smacked his Haas against the pitwall.
“They all [are] pretty ready after F3 and F2,” says Steiner when asked of his driver’s early mistakes. “But then it’s still a big step into F1. The only way to learn about F1 is doing it. You cannot
““THEY ALL [ARE] PRETTY READY AFTER F3 AND F2, BUT THEN IT’S STILL A BIG STEP INTO F1. THE ONLY WAY TO LEARN ABOUT F1 IS DOING IT. YOU CANNOT READ IT IN A BOOK.”
GUENTHER STEINER
read it in a book. You can do simulator work, you can drive two-year-old cars, but still going to a race weekend, coming from F2, getting exposure, getting the pressure… it’s the only way.
“It’s not like we could send him to a year of school to learn F1. It would be still jumping in cold water when you do your first race. It’s just so much more [happening]. All of a sudden there are 50 people [around you], and these people are not there to sit and watch TV. These engineers just bombard you with instructions. When it hits you the first time, it must be quite amazing. And it only gets natural by doing it.”
But being a rookie in F1 is one thing. Being a rookie with such a surname is another. Where others would’ve had the chance to learn at their own pace, Mick – thanks to carrying the Schumacher name – is always under the spotlight. Especially in Germany.
You’ll never hear revelations from Mick on how hard it may be to cope with the added pressure of his surname. “I’m very happy to carry that surname and I’m very happy to carry that name back into Formula 1,” he’ll say when answering such questions. “I’m very proud of it. It’s like a boost to me and it gives me motivation every day to work as much as I can and as hard as I can.”
But is it really that simple?
“I think with that one, he’s actually dealing pretty well,” says Steiner. “But it’s still a pressure. It still doesn’t come for free. It’s not something you just say ‘yeah, I don’t really care’ about. We also must not forget he’s not 50 years old. He’s 22.
“Now, going to F1, everybody is expecting that he does what his father did, you know? ‘Oh, Michael was seven times world champion, so now Mick picks up, and he’s going to be world champion’. Also, for Michael, it took a few years. It didn’t come from today to tomorrow.”
In the junior series, Mick was shielded from excessive media attention by manager Sabine Kehm. He almost never gave any exclusive interviews. But, like his junior career, that period has too ended. Haas, Steiner insists, is treating Mick like any other driver, even if in his case the interest from the press is many times higher than it might be for other rookies.
“If you want to do this business, that’s part of it,” Steiner explains. “You cannot be always protected. Because at some stage it will come to you anyway. I think there [in junior series] it was more important, because I think it was a lot more about his last name than the actual racing. In Formula 1 you probably can control it, but you cannot avoid it anymore.
“He’s there now. He’s one of 20. So it’s part of the job now, to be Mick Schumacher. Whatever name you’ve got, you are a Formula 1 driver now. But I think that is happening naturally now, that he’s just a part of an F1 team, and the F1 team decides what you need to do. Because there are sponsors, which we have obligations to.”
On the other hand, being a Schumacher in motorsport is a clear benefit. Mick has always been surrounded by people like Schnapka and Kehm, who know this world inside out, having worked with one of the best drivers in history. Along with Peter Kaiser, a long-time friend and partner of Michael’s, they have been guiding Mick from his first steps in the lower categories. And he can still count on them now.
“That always gives me a lot of trust and hold,” Mick says of this support. “And also the ability to kind of sometimes escape the stressful weekend, to just relax. To play chess, for example, or just not always 100% think about what is going on out there and how to try and proceed with the next step and everything, but also to reset the mind and be able to think even more clearly after that.”
There will be more people from his father’s past willing to help Mick within Haas too. Technicians Maurizio Barbieri and Leonardo Di Biase, and technical director Simone Resta, also worked with Mick’s father during his best years in F1. And like his father, Schumacher Jr is someone who’s capable of getting more people on his side, according to Steiner.
“He really tries to treat people correctly, and appreciates what they do,” the Haas boss says. “Because, again, I say he’s smart… If these guys bond with him, they will work hard for him. If he doesn’t try to bond with them, for them it will be just another driver.
“So he knows exactly what he’s doing. But I think it is genuine, he’s not doing it to take an advantage of it. He really respects people and what they do for him, and he understands as well that they work hard. And if you work as a team,
“THE CAR IS NOT FAST, SO LET’S MAKE THE MOST OUT OF IT AND RUN AS MUCH AS WE CAN, LEARN AS MUCH AS WE CAN, SO WHEN WE GET A BETTER CAR, WE ARE READY”
GUENTHER STEINER
it’s much easier to get the last drop out of them than when you don’t care about them. He cares.”
Mick’s first F1 season won’t be easy. He doesn’t have a car as capable as Jordan’s 191 to put him immediately inside the top 10, nor is Flavio Briatore ready and waiting to offer Schumacher a podium-contending car. The 2021 Haas is the worst car in F1 right now, so Mick’s first year definitely won’t be as exceptional as his father’s.
But if there’s any positive to that, it’s that Mick can spend the year doing what he does so well – developing his skills.
“For sure, he would have liked to have a better car,” admits Steiner. “But if you analyse it from a little bit of distance, it doesn’t hurt him. He can still learn to drive an F1 car with all the complexity, all the difficulties… and there are even more difficulties with a bad car than with a good car, to be honest. And he can learn all that without additional pressure, because I think we take a lot of it away from him saying ‘hey, we know it’s not him, it’s the car which is not competitive’.
“We have to get the good out of the bad – the car is not fast, so let’s make the most out of it and run as much as we can, learn as much as we can, so when we get a better car, we are ready.”
The good thing is, people say he’s smart. So he’ll probably figure out a way.