Toto Wolff insists Mick Schumacher still deserves another shot at Formula 1, based on the German’s winning history in junior series, which was not easy to achieve.
According to this report made possible by online casinos in NZ, Schumacher lost his F1 seat at Haas at the end of the 2022 season, his future in top flight still hanging in the air, despite signals from Mercedes that they may take him in as a reserve driver, boss Toto Wolff saying it must happen.
The latest hints at a Mercedes future for young Mick came during an interview with Wolff with “Beyond the Grid” podcast, when he was asked about the former Haas driver.
“I really like Mick,” Wolff said. “I like the family, how they have raised their kids with this unbelievably famous name and I think he deserves a chance. He won the junior series and that is not easy.”
Wolff went on defending Schumacher who was let go from Haas after a string of errors and expensive crashed in 2022, while Kevin Magnussen on the other hand delivered the team and his own first pole position and hit the ground running at the start of the season, when suddenly called up to replace Nikita Mazepin, after one year away from F1.
F1 is brutal
“Things can go against you in your first years in F1 and then he was under pressure to deliver and that doesn’t help,” the Mercedes boss explained.
“F1 is brutal,” he insisted. “Maybe in a way having a year off as a third driver, similar to what Daniel [Ricciardo] does, can be good to re-assess yourself and bring yourself in a better place, hopefully finding a better seat again.
“He always impressed me from his personality,” the Austrian revealed. “The first time I met him, which was in his first year in F3 at Hockenheim, he’s just a good person.
“He won F3, he won F2 and as I said before, that can’t come out of nowhere,” Wolff maintained.
Despite his tough 2022 season, Schumacher managed to qualified in the top ten on five occasions, sixth in Canada his best effort. He also managed to score points in Silverstone and Austria where he finished eighth and sixth respectively.