While former Haas driver, Mick Schumacher, was facing the axe, he always had the support of his rambunctious uncle, Ralf Schumacher, and perhaps more importantly for his F1 future, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff. As it turns out, that may be true as Wolff wants him as the reserve driver at Mercedes.
Seeing that Nick de Vries is no longer Mercedes reserve driver having earned a seat at AlphaTauri after an impressive showing at the Italian Grand Prix, the position is open.
Daniel Ricciardo was also in the running to grab the seat, but he took the reserve position at his former team, Red Bull. Now that that’s sorted, what’s to stop Schumacher from the seat at Mercedes? It won’t be Wolff who told the media that he was more than willing to sign up Schumacher.
“Mick is someone that has always been close to our heart because of [his father] Michael and the whole Schumacher family,” Wolff explained.
“Ralf was in DTM for a long time with us, his son [David, Mick’s cousin] races Mercedes in GTs, and [Mick] is an intelligent, well-mannered young man. He’s been very successful in junior formulas, and we believe that we can look after him if the situation were to happen.
“He is someone that just fits the team, but we haven’t put pen to paper. We haven’t really come anywhere close to any terms. I’m saying that openly because I think he just fits and now we need to make it happen – if he wants to, if [Schumacher’s manager] Sabine [Kim] wants to and then we will see where that goes.”
The only barrier to this might be Schumacher’s talks with the Ferrari Driver Academy who have been assisting his development in the sport. The rumour right now is that the FDA will drop their support after 2022, but Ferrari team principal, Mattia Binotto, has said that they will be looking after Schumacher’s best interests going forward.
“As the Ferrari Driver Academy, we believe he [Schumacher] is a great driver, and after Haas has somehow decided for a different choice for next season, we need to sit down with Mick and really trying to decide what’s best for the future,” explained Binotto.
“The decision would be what is best for him,” he continued. “We don’t have any seat to offer him right now and what’s most important when you are so young in your career is to make sure that you get the best opportunity. We’ll be fully open to different choices, but it is something that obviously we need to sit down with him and conclude.”
With those words it seems fairly likely that Schumacher will have the reserve seat at Mercedes.
For more, check out how Sebastian Vettel went from F1 villain to an aboslute hero.
