According to motorsport engineer and Haas team manager Günther Steiner, the probability that Ferrari junior Mick Schumacher will drive for the American team in the 2023 championship is 50:50
Mick Schumacher’s future in Formula 1 is uncertain, as the 23-year-old Ferrari Driver Academy member’s options for the coming season are few and far between. Whether Mick Schumacher stays with the US racing team Haas depends largely on team boss Günther Steiner’s “gut feeling”. The Italian-American is driven by a classic question when choosing a driver for 2023, as he explains in the interview for RTL.
Schumacher? Hulkenberg? Another driver? Haas isn’t putting itself under pressure
Youth or experience? Going into a third season with Mick Schumacher and thus continuing to take a certain risk, or bringing a veteran on board whose end of career is not too far away? “These are all these questions that are floating around,” said Günther Steiner. It is quite possible that Mick Schumacher will also be in the Haas cockpit next year, the probability is “Fifty-Fifty”.
His strong performance in the Italian Grand Prix, when the youngster impressed with many overtaking maneuvers, has not (yet) given Mick Schumacher a decisive advantage, as Günther Steiner and racing team owner Gene Haas want to continue to wait, evaluate and explore the situation on the driver market, as the team boss emphasizes.
Haas didn’t set a date for a decision, Günther Steiner confirmed: “You put yourself under pressure and we don’t need that, we’re only playing against ourselves. We don’t actually have any time pressure at all, everyone else has time pressure, but we don’t, that’s an advantage that we don’t want to lose it.”
Haas wants to see “what’s possible, what happens”, but Günther Steiner didn’t want to provide any specific details. After all, “Mick drove a good race in Monza.”
Besides Haas, Mick Schumacher has hardly any realistic options for the 2023 Formula 1 season. A door could open at Alpine, but the French team would prefer to sign Pierre Gasly from AlphaTauri. There would be room in the Red Bull junior team should Gasly change teams, but Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has said several times that Mick Schumacher is not really up for debate at AlphaTauri. Williams would remain an option, which – as of today – would mean a sporting relegation for the German driver.
“A man like Nico brings experience”
In order to improve his chances at Haas, Mick Schumacher must continue to impress in the next races, starting with the Singapore Grand Prix. It could even be the case that Haas will wait until the end of the season before choosing his driver, Günther Steiner pointed out.
The list of candidates for the cockpit alongside Kevin Magnussen is not exactly short. “Most drivers with a super license” would be written on it, said the 57-year-old – including Nico Hülkenberg.
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“A man like Nico brings experience with him,” – the Haas boss said, as he praised the advantages of the 35-year-old, who hasn’t had a regular seat for two years, but has always impressed in short chance he received to stand in for sick drivers. For Haas, the decisive question is: “How can a driver contribute to make the team better and bring us to the top?”
Steiner admitted that he could not answer this direct question at the moment. “How much risk are you willing to take? You usually take more risks with a young driver because you don’t know how far he can go,” the team boss alluded to Mick Schumacher’s fluctuating performances over the course of the 2022 Formula One season. An experienced driver, on the other hand, knows what he is doing, but is closer to the end of his career and may not be as motivated. Ultimately, the “gut feeling” is the deciding factor, according to Steiner: “You can’t calculate that mathematically.”
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