Ferrari Have Failed Mick Schumacher, Here’s How…

It is of no surprise the struggles endured by Mick Schumacher during his two years to date in F1, but let’s look at why the blame must fall on the Scuderia Ferrari.

Such a promising prospect was all but hung out to dry by Ferrari, as it was well known that racing for Haas is not going to help a young driver develop their craft.

2016 saw the once promising talent of Esteban Gutierrez, who prior to Schumacher was the first driver from the Ferrari stable to race for Haas. However, it proved an unfortunate demise for Gutierrez who failed to register a point for the American outfit. The Mexican lost his seat in F1 for 2017, and has been plying his trade with Mercedes as a reserve driver since 2018.

How Did Ferrari Fail Mick Schumacher?

2020 was time for the reigning F2 and F3 Champion Mick Schumacher to make his step up to the big leagues of F1, Schumacher left Prema Racing after a successful spell, and it was all but assumed that the young German would partner the experienced Kimi Raikkonen, as his father Michael had previously done with the up and coming Felipe Massa in 2007.

Instead of Ferrari sending Mick Schumacher to learn from Kimi, they decided that partnering him with another rookie in Nikita Mazepin was a more beneficial decision…

Not to mention it had already been disclosed that Haas was making no changes to the 2021 car, effectively making it like trying to push a bus uphill in the snow.

Instead of sticking to their previous winning formula that we saw when Ferrari sent Charles Leclerc to Alfa Romeo, who had an exciting debut season.

Schumacher was instead given the task of attempting to co-exist with the Hollywood-esque team principal at Haas.

The Steiner Effect

It’s unfortunate for the progression of Schumacher that instead of having the support of Frederic Vasseur, a team boss who had received plaudits for his successes in bringing through young talent.

Schumacher was instead thrust into the B-grade budget horror movie known as Haas Team Principle Guenther Steiner, and partnered with his inexperienced teammate Mazepin.

Steiner had become known more for his antics on the Netflix show Drive to Survive, rather than that of successfully running a motorsport team.

From his ridiculous outbursts to some rather questionable decisions Steiner was TV gold, but this wasn’t going to help the growth of Mick Schumacher.

Costly Mistakes

This isn’t to say that Mick Schumacher hasn’t made his share of mistakes during his early days at Haas.

As we see time and again with rookie drivers, the lack of experience has sometimes risen to the surface. We have seen the German push himself into some needless mistakes.

There have been costly crashes this season where Schumacher was involved in two extremely expensive mistakes both costing an estimated £1m in damages to the Haas team.

Some understandable pressure has started to creep upon Schumacher, no longer with a mistake-prone teammate, every mistake by Schumacher seemed to be highlighted by the ever-reliable Kevin Magnussen.

All these mistakes were highlighted at every possible opportunity by Steiner, although little seems to be mentioned regarding the costly team mistakes.

On multiple occasions this season poor team decisions and reliability issues have been costly to Mick Schumacher with Hungaroring, Montreal and Zandvoort immediately coming to mind.

Is There Life After Ferrari For Mick?

Given the way his career has been handled up to this point, many believe that parting ways with Ferrari may actually be the spark that reignites the German’s promising career.

As the F1 Silly Season goes on it has become more and more apparent that he may not be with Haas in 2023, yet several drivers have heaped praise on Schumacher.

Four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel gave his support to Schumacher as a replacement for his seat at Aston Martin, however, that spot was quickly filled by Fernando Alonso.

Alpine remaining driver Esteban Ocon has also shared his support for Schumacher to form an exciting young partnership pairing the friends together.

With other glowing reports from team principals Toto Wolff and Franz Tost, the future is looking hopeful for Schumacher, although it may not be in the red of Ferrari…

What do you think of the way Ferrari have handled the early career of Mick Schumacher? Let us know in the comments.