Ferrari Driver Academy member Mick Schumacher feels ready for Formula 1 move. In Hockenheim, Mick drove a Ferrari F2004.

On the Wednesday before the Italian Grand Prix, Ferrari fans assembled in the Piazza Duomo in Milan to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the team’s founding.

One of the biggest cheers came when 20-year-old Mick Schumacher walked on stage. Fans cheered the name, the memories of Mick’s father Michael and Ferrari’s glory years. They want the team to be great again, and Mick just might be their next hope.

Mick is a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy; in April, he completed Formula 1 tests in Bahrain for Ferrari and Alfa Romeo. In Hockenheim, he drove a Ferrari F2004—the type of car his father won his seventh, and last, F1 title in 15 years ago.

And then came Milan.

“It was a strange feeling,” Mick said. “Obviously I had never experienced something like that before. That was just a little bit of what my dad experienced. It was hard for me to imagine how it must have been for him, but it was nice. You really feel the vibe and the support of the people.”

Expectations weigh heavily on Mick’s shoulders. It’s the same in Germany, where interest in Formula 1 is a pale shadow of what it used to be when Michael was still driving. He was special, in part because he was the hero the country needed in the unsettling years after its reunification. Michael was a social phenomenon as much as a racing driver.

When Mick started racing karts in 2008, he used the name “Mick Betsch,” his mom Corinna’s maiden name. Later he used “Mick Junior,” but he eventually took the family name and lived with the wild expectations. He knows that when all is said and done, he has to build his own career based on ability and results. His path to the top has been eased with access to the best teams and no worries about funding, but one cannot deny that Schumacher has earned his spurs by winning the Formula 3 European Championship in 2018.

Now in Formula 2, he is clearly thinking about F1.

“Sure, I think about it,” he says. “That’s my dream. It’s where I want to go, and that’s where I want to basically live my life.”