Scuderia Ferrari has confirmed it would be more than happy to welcome Mick Schumacher to its young driver academy with a ‘red carpet’, after saying that the youngster’s progress and skills have impressed the Maranello team. Mick, the son of seven-time world champion and Ferrari legend Michael, will have the opportunity of racing in the European Formula 3 Championship next season with Prema.
The reaction comes after rivals Mercedes have already expressed their interest to sign up the 17-year-old to its young driver programme. Massimo Rivola, who took over the running of the Ferrari Driver Academy as part of the Scuderia’s plans to restructure its Formula 1 young driver programme the, told Gazzetta dello Sport about Mick Schumacher: “Obviously we follow him. And this year we will have the opportunity to stay very close to Mick, considering that he will be teammate of our FDA driver (Guan Yu) Zhou in the Prema team. Regarding his future, I don’t know what Mick will decide to do, but if he would like to enter the Ferrari Driver Academy programme, he will definitely find a red carpet.”
The former Ferrari sporting director then added that it was not only Schumacher’s form on track that impressed him, but also the way he handled himself outside of a car too: “Mick seems very polite and he’s not full of himself – so congratulations to his parents. They did a very good job with him. He is very young, and he must manage a very huge media pressure. But he is doing it very well, I must admit.” Massimo Rivola concluded, as reported by th Italian newspaper.
The Italian company set up the academy in 2009 to develop future racers for its F1 team. Rivola has also heaped praise on Ferrari third driver Antonio Giovinazzi, who was signed up after an impressive rookie campaign in GP2 where he won five races and finished runner-up to Pierre Gasly.
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