Mick Schumacher reacted to the news of his impending departure from Haas with disappointment, saying he extracted the “maximum” from his car this season.
The second-year driver is being dropped by Haas, the team he has raced with for the last two seasons, in favour of the more experienced Nico Hulkenberg. Schumacher has just under half the points tally of his team mate Kevin Magnussen heading into the final round of the season in Abu Dhabi this weekend.Schumacher believes that he has been driving well in recent months, but says he “respects” his team’s decision not to retain him for 2023.
“Obviously it’s disappointing in some ways, because I feel like I’ve been doing a good job up to this point,” Schumacher said. “On the other hand, the team decided to go that way so I have to respect that. I’m focussed on the future now.”
Despite not scoring his first points of the season until midway through the year at Silverstone, Schumacher insists that his results were trending in a positive direction over the second half of the championship.
“We’ve had our ups and downs for sure, but I think that the trend was always pointing upwards,” he explained. “I think that’s what’s important.
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“It’s only my second year in Formula 1 – last year, I don’t even know if you can really count it as a year because obviously it was a tough one, we were only in the back. So it was definitely something I had to get used to, being in the midfield pack fighting.
“I feel that across the year we’ve managed to do that and I feel like I’ve extracted the maximum out of each situation, let’s say. So I feel like the trend was there.”
Asked what his target was for his final race with the team this weekend in Abu Dhabi, Schumacher said his goal was simply to “finish on a high.”
“As high as we can, I guess,” he said. “We have we have a car which is probably just close to P10, or maybe a bit below. But if we get everything right, I’m sure there’s potential to be in the points.
“I think that that’s still what we’re aiming for, to score as many points [as possible] because we’re in a tight battle with AlphaTauri. And also for me in the drivers’ standing, I want to be obviously as far forwards as I can.”
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2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
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- Magnussen’s experience makes him ‘positive’ ousted Schumacher can return to F1
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Philby (@philby77)
17th November 2022, 13:36
I believe it’s for the best. In my opinion he deserves another shot at f1 and he will be better off in another environment. On the other hand I can hardly imagine him being wdc material but Gasly, Ocon level definitely.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
17th November 2022, 13:45
@philby77 I agree – he deserves another chance but he needs a bit of time to clear his head. I’d love to see him make a strong comeback in the future. Maybe in 2024 or 2025. But I would continue racing somewhere in the meantime.
Philby (@philby77)
17th November 2022, 15:20
His best bet is WEC as 2023 and 2024 even more so, have potential to be epic.
AlanD
17th November 2022, 14:04
“he deserves another shot at f1”
I often see people saying a driver deserves another shot, or another year, etc, but that highlights the problem that people don’t really get into F1 on merit. For sure, everyone who gets an F1 seat is an amazingly good driver, but still only a tiny fraction of top drivers can drive in F1 because there are just not enough seats, and even fewer competitive seats, and in F1, marketing and the money you bring to the team seems to be every bit as important as merit. Is Schumacher really one of the top 22 drivers in the world right now? If we cannot say that with confidence, we cannot really say he deserves another shot.
We also have to ask if his name is influencing us. For sure it has marketing value, but I expect a lot of people were talking him up because they thought he would be a clone of his father, much like when Bruno Senna first had a seat, there were people saying “It’s great to see the Senna name back in F1”. If the surname is influencing us, it clearly cannot be based entirely on merit.
I feel the problem for unknown drivers has been made worse because of the lack of in-season testing. In the past, test drivers had real opportunities to clock up serious miles in the car, and team bosses could also run their own sessions with newcomers, to see who had talent, who was good at working with the engineers, etc. I think Ayrton Senna got his first F1 drive in a test session for new names organised by either Williams or McClaren, though I cannot remember for sure which team it was. Nowadays the best a test driver can hope for is hours in the simulator, and a token session or two in FP1 at a few selected races, at which chances are they’ll overdrive the car in an effort to impress and put it into the wall on their first lap out.
Ad
17th November 2022, 14:58
He is an f3 and an f2 champion making your essay irrelevant.
He beat tsunoda Zhou and all the young driver’s coming in to f1 what are you even blabbering about dude.
Haas is a bad team a weak owner a team leader with no leadership qualities. Strategy mistake after Strategy mistake. Seriously stop talking nonsens. The problem is haas and not mick
JA
17th November 2022, 17:36
Neither Zhou or Tsunoda have done enough to show they belong, lets get that clear right from the start. One also have to look at how he beat them, he often qualified down the grid around 4-6 meaning he would be in prime conditions to get good points in both the sprints and the races. He had zero poles, three wins and just two fastest laps. He often gained a position or two at the start and stayed there for the majority of the race. Not really showing more speed than others, and he had to some extend failed to bring the good starts to formula 1. It was stability that won him the titel, not speed or pure talent like with Leclerc or Piastri who did the same for Prema. Overall a good driver and the verge of being a steady F1 driver.
Armchair Expert (@armchairexpert)
17th November 2022, 13:37
He extracted maximum from his car especially during qualifying last weekend. “P20, atta boy! Kevin is P1, but you did amazing job finishing last! I love you Mick!”
George.be
17th November 2022, 14:26
Armchair expert is a perfect name…
Magnussen was bad on the inters, and had his last timed lap on inters deleted, so gambled early on to go to the slick tire, giving him sufficient time to learn the drying track.
Mick has been screwed by the Haas strategy in Q1: He was in P3 before the field moved to slicks. But at the crossover point, Haas kept him on inters until the last 3 minutes. That gave him one warmup lap and only one timed lap on the slicks. Having the season he had, he was too prudent in that timed lap.
The same happened in the last wet race: one car was kept on inters until he was racing on the belt. Can you guess who was kept way too long on the inters?
JA
17th November 2022, 16:05
Mick was right in front of Kevin when they swapped for slicks in the pit. He had the same amount of time as most others except the early runners.
Mark (@blueruck)
17th November 2022, 13:56
I wonder if we will hear that Mick is the Merc reserve driver this weekend, so he can get some seat time at the test.
Vegggen (@vegggen)
17th November 2022, 14:17
If that was his maximum Haas made the right move.
Some grooming at Merc, then be ready when Lewis retires. Would be a nice symmetry, but probably not very likely.
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17th November 2022, 15:02
Mick is a f2 and f3 champion. He has beaten all the young driver’s you think deserve to be there like tsunoda or Zhou.
The problem is haas and always was haas
I luv chicken
17th November 2022, 21:43
The only “max”, that he extracted, was from the parts bin, at the factory. But bye. Don’t slam the door.
NS Biker (@rekibsn)
17th November 2022, 23:47
The Budget Cap has long been touted as a means of levelling the overall playing field. It will do this, but there are factors that fall out of the Cap that will influence far more than how much teams can spend.
Smash up a couple of cars and a small team like Haas will suffer more than the larger squads. The availability of spare parts is an issue, but more than that is the ability to manufacture more parts. Red Bull has been noted as being able to make replacement and development parts very quickly. Something I suspect that the other top teams are equally adept at.
Hiring rookie drivers will save on salaries, but yer gonna need lots of parts. Haas’s current driver line-up seems to fit into this thinking.
M
18th November 2022, 4:27
His maximum turned out to be minimal.
Off to other series and maybe he’ll fit better.
Webber fan
18th November 2022, 7:57
Probably true. However Kevin extracted more which means his maximum is higher than Schumacher’s. And in the end that is what counts.
Casanova (@casanova)
18th November 2022, 9:42
I feel for him – that Haas looked an absolute dog to drive at the start of the year. He hasn’t quite shone, but his results have been more than respectable. I hope he gets another shot at F1 to show what he’s capable of.