Ferrari Driver Academy member Mick Schumacher believes that it is very difficult for any Formula One driver to “make big differences” in his attempt to build a team in a similar way to the style of father Michael, taking into consideration the fact that the field is closer together overall in the modern day.
Michael Schumacher joined Scuderia Ferrari from Benetton in 1996, in a moment in which the Maranello team had last won the Drivers’ Championship in 1979 and the Constructors’ Championship in 1983. The German driver’s goal was to get the Italian side back on top and managed to win his first title with Scuderia Ferrari in his fifth championship, thus putting an end to the long period without major success.
His son Mick, who is getting ready for his second Formula 1 season after making his debut last year with Haas, was asked whether it is possible for something like this to happen again, with a driver that could become a catalyst in moving a team forward. The Ferrari Driver Academy member is confident the performance gap between teams will reduce in 2022 with the introduction of the new rules, but taking into consideration that Formula 1 teams are less spread out than they were in his father’s racing days, Mick feels it is a lot more difficult for a driver to make a significant difference in the same way in the present day.
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“I hope it will be easier again in the future. The cost cap will hopefully bring the teams closer together,” Mick Schumacher said, as reported by Motorsport-Magazin – “I do believe that in the end a top team will still have the upper hand, but to what extent the driver can then translate it into a championship is always the question. Everything has to be right and fit together. And yes, then you can certainly make something out of it. What happened in the past and what happens today are of course two different things. You can’t really compare them anymore. The reliability used to be quite different. Nowadays, the whole field is very compressed. Even we at the end of the field are only between two and three seconds away from a top car. In the past, it was very different. Just one example: in 1997, Jacques Villeneuve was more than 1.5 seconds faster in qualifying in Melbourne than his team-mate, who was still in second place. The differences are smaller now; everything has been perfected much more, so the driver or the team can no longer make the big differences.” – he explained.
Mick Schumacher will do everything possible to help bring Haas as far up the field as much as possible in 2022. Haas focused on its project for this Formula 1 season from the early stages of last year, but the Ferrari junior remains realistic regarding his chances of being involved in the midfield battle.
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