Just four years ago, Mick Schumacher – son of sporting legend Michael – was a fresh face on the Formula One scene, ready and raring to go ahead of his debut season at 21 years old.
Fans of the iconic German racer, and the sport at large, were licking their lips. Here was a shot at seeing Michael Mark II, seven years after the horror accident that forced the all-time-great out of public life. But lightning rarely strikes twice.
Instead, lumbered with arguably the most famous name in the history of the sport, Mick’s time amongst motorsport’s elite has been littered with crashes, feuds, and ‘mediocrity’ – which has lead to him seemingly set to go without a seat for the second year in a row after it was reported that Sauber were intent on filling their vacancy with Formula Two talent Gabriel Bortoleto.
Few would have been banking on the young driver to immediately emmulate his unstoppable father.
But for Mick, their head-to-head makes for unedifying reading. In his 43 starts to his father’s 308, Schumacher Snr won just 12 points to his father’s mammoth 1,566. In pursuit of his seven world championships, the Ferrari ace took part in 155 podiums, and stood at the very top of 91 of them. His son is yet to experience a single one, and as a reserve driver toiling in the background of the sport’s travelling circus is a long, long way off, after years of early promise.
Mick Schumacher (right) has been unable to match the career of his father – Formula One legend Michael
Like his father, the 25-year-old has been interested in motorsports from a very young age
After an unsatisfying spell at American constructor Haas for two seasons, Mick is on the outs
But where did it all go wrong for the Formula One scion, where it all went so right for his seven-time world champion father years earlier?
As one might imagine, from the very beginning Schumacher Jnr seemed fated to follow in his father’s footsteps. Starting off on the karting circuit at the age of nine, Mick may have been slower than his generational-talent father at picking up honours – Schumacher was just 13 when he won the German Junior Kart Championship, and technically too young to even hold a license as a German competitor – they started trickling in. At the same age as his father’s triumph, Schumacher Jnr was coming second in the competition, as well as the European and World Championships.
Early on, however, Mick was aware of the burden that came with his surname, competing under his mother Corinna’s name, Betsch, for the early stages of his budding career. Schumacher Jnr would continue using this psuedonym sporadically over the next decade.
‘I jumped into go-karts when I was three years old, went on to national racing at eight. By the time I was 11, 12, I knew I wanted to do this professionally.’ Schumacher Jnr wrote for Under Armour in 2020.
‘I’d used different names to sort of race undercover, improve without too much of the notoriety of being “my father’s son.”‘
But, Schumacher Jnr was adamant that he didn’t ‘feel any pressure to carry on the family name’, perhaps inspiring an early career decision somewhat different to the Ferrari legend’s, and first evidence of their paths diverging.
In 1990, Schumacher took the decision to compete in the somewhat obscure World Sportscar Championship rather than the then-traditional breeding ground for future F1 champions, Formula 3000. The World Sportscar Championship was not only less visible, but involved a different challenge – endurance racing.
Although Schumacher saw nowhere near the success he had seen in Formula Three that season, he stayed another season with the Mercedes-Benz development team, honing his skills in a different forum.
But the greatest difference between father and son’s teenage years was to come away from the track. In 2013, Mick was just 14 years old when he was skiing with his father in the French Alps. On the fateful day of Schumacher Snr’s life-changing accident, the teenager was the sole witness to his father’s freak fall.
During the early years of his budding career in racing, Mick used his mother Corinna’s maiden name as a cover
But the mantel of the Schumacher name has meant that countless eyes have been on Mick since his very start
Schumacher Jnr has always been proud of his father’s titanic achievements and drove his Benetton on the eve of the 25th anniversary of his first GP victory
Schumacher Jnr also signed up to Ferrari’s driver stable as a youth prospect (pictured in 2019)
In keeping with the family’s famous wall of privacy, Mick has spoken little about the traumatic impact Schumacher Snr’s near-fatal crash has had on both his life and career, his most recent comments coming with the release of Netflix documentary Schumacher two years ago.
‘I think dad and me, we would understand each other in a different way now,’ Mick shared. ‘We would have had much more to talk about and that is where my head is most of the time, thinking that would be so cool. I would give up everything just for that.’
Undoubtedly, Schumacher Jnr would have benefitted from words of wisdom imparted by his father during the start of his professional career on a number of differing levels. Instead, Mick was forced to focus on his rise through the choppy waters of Formula Three and Two against the backdrop of a deeply emotional tragedy.
Mick took some time to settle in both new arenas when the time came, making an unexceptional debut in his initial Formula Three season in 2017 with a 12th-place finish. Driving for Prema Powerteam, Mick could only claim a third-place finish in Monza as his season high. In a flourish which would unfortunately follow him all the way to the sport’s upper echelons, Mick was also the lowest-ranked of all of his team’s drivers.
But it was a different story next season as the young driver showed no sign of growing pains to clinch the championship. Formula Two was a near-perfect replica of the feat – in 2019, Schumacher Jnr was 12th, a year later, firmly planted on the podium.
Schumacher Snr’s time away from traditional Formula racing gave him an immediate edge when he hopped into the vacant seat of Bertand Gachot’s Jordan – then doing time for aggravated assault – at Spa in 1991. The German star’s performance was so strong in Belgian that just months later, there was a positive three-way scrap over nailing down the driver for the following season – and just three years after his debut, Schumacher would win his maiden world championship with Bennetton.
The stars aligned for a supernaturally talented driver as the perfect conditions converged for Schumacher’s first success. His son’s career, by contrast, appears a perfect storm of a different way.
American-owned underdog strivers Haas were the team to hand Schumacher Jnr his maiden contract ahead of the 2021 season, and it’s no stretch to say that the constructor was a world away from the all-conquering Bennetton. Woefully underfunded due to the withdrawal of Rich Energy’s somewhat dubious sponsorship in during the 2019 season, Haas had turned to Uralkrali, the Russian potash company owned by the father of driver Nikita Mazepin. The heir was swiftly handed a seat for 2020 and 2021, the resources were so skimpy the decision was made to delay upgrades for the latter season’s car in favour of full focus on the 2022 iteration.
One of Mick’s mentors in the cut-throat world of F1 is his father’s old mentee Sebastian Vettel
Despite tricky starts in both Formula Two and Formula Three, Schumacher Jnr eventually won both titles
He then joined Nikita Mazepin at Haas in 2021 in his Formula One debut – but there were troubles to come
Mazepin was a far less experienced team-mate than his 2022 companion Kevin Magnussen
As such, Schumacher’s first top-tier wheels were well below the standard of his opponents on the grid, even by the small team’s usual realistic expectations. Nor could the 21-year-old fire himself up competing with his team-mate. Schumacher Jnr repeatedly outclassed the less-than stellar Mazepin – to the extent that the ensuing season of Drive to Survive featured his father Dmitry convinced that the two drivers were in separately set-up VF-21s.
But more than the car, central to Schumacher’s failure at the constructor over his torrid two seasons with Haas was his incendiary relationship with team principal Guenther Steiner.
The Austrian head honcho’s star had risen exponentially due to his emergence as a cult character in Drive to Survive, unafraid of rough criticism peppered with expletives, but few of his drivers came in for as much targeting as Schumacher in his second season.
Schumacher’s 2022 was by no means heaven-sent. Competing against the much-more experienced Kevin Magnussen in the second Haas seat, Schumacher looked undercooked by comparison as he was comprehensively outqualified, earning 12 points at the end of the year to Magnussen’s 25.
But worst of all were a string of severe crashes during both practice sessions and competitive action. One particularly bad smash-up, during the first practice ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, cost the constructor a dazzling $700,000 (£550,000), with Schumacher Jnr topping the ‘Destructors’ Championship’ at the end of the campaign with a total bill of damages worth £1.7m.
It was clear that Steiner’s relationship with Mick had soured, but it only became evident by how much in fraught scenes in the Netflix documentary series, and Steiner’s own book, Surviving to Drive.
The ex-team principal was uncensored in his criticism of Schumacher, calling his mistake ‘f****** ridiculous’ and since his move away from the paddock in 2023, Steiner has been a semi-regular critic of the driver, describing his turn in F1 as ‘mediocre’.
Schumacher Snr was someone constantly supported by a cocoon of trusted mentors including Ferrari team principal Jean Todt and his long-term agent Wili Weber. His son’s own foray into the Pirhana Club might have looked markedly different if he had been able to forge the same bonds with his ex-team principal.
A soured relationship with Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has lingered in years since
Steiner was particularly angry about the damages that Schumacher Jnr incurred in his second season, such as a terrific smash-up in Japan
Schumacher Jnr could have badly done with a powerful ally like Ferrari racing manager Jean Todt – one of his father’s closest friends to this day
Schumacher Snr won his first Formula One world championship just three years after his first run-out in Belgium
With his confidence shattered by a disappointing and error-strewn season, Schumacher Jnr was dropped by Haas in favour of the experienced Nico Hulkenberg, and has failed to assert himself in the minds of team principals looking to fill a seat ever since. Taken under the wing of Toto Wolff at the end of 2022, Mick has served as Mercedes’ reserve driver, and driven for Alpine as part of the World Endurance Championship, but neither role has seen him distinguish himself enough to force his way back onto the main grid.
For luminaries like Red Bull’s Helmut Marko, the wounds of his stint at Haas have run deep enough to provide key reasoning for this.
‘At Haas, he was not treated fairly by Netflix superstar Guenther Steiner. That’s a fact,’ the advisor said. ‘Once you’re out, it’s difficult.’
But, Marko added, ‘you only hear good things about him’, stressing that Schumacher Jnr is one of the ‘nicest and politest people in the entire paddock’. Although teams like Alpine and Audi have reportedly sounded him out for a potential seat, little has come of the speculation – personality doesn’t pay.
More telling, however, was a comment of Marko’s that Mick will know all too well – that he has the ‘handicap of a big name’. Unlike most drivers who are able to develop with shifting expectation, Schumacher Jnr has been forced to keep up with constant comparisons since his arrival at motorsport’s top table.
Bernie Eccleston is another figure who believes that the weight of his second name is the driver’s biggest impediment.
‘In the best-case scenario, someone will see him and say: We need him. And not the other way around, namely someone who will take him in because of his name. He should forget his name and develop further as a person.’
Schumacher Jnr has been described as ‘the nicest and politest person in the paddock’
But a good reputation is one thing – and being handed the keys at a top team like Schumacher’s move to Ferrari is another
Mick is staring down the barrel of another season without a spot on the main grid in 2025
Arguably, Haas – a striving team always looking to tempt new sponsors into their garage – was one such party seduced by the ‘Schumacher’ of it all, and the driver – although a Formula Two champion – was expected to perform at a much higher level because of his background.
But in 2024, there are few comparisons on the track between father and son beyond their similar looks and shared second name. At 25 years old, Schumacher Jnr is now perilously close to missing out on a drive as he goes into his peak competitive years. His father, decades earlier, was bathing in the glory of his first time at the top of the championship.
Although the goodwill of the paddock is behind him, Schumacher Jnr still has much to prove if he ever wishes to fully shrug off the impressive legacy Schumacher Snr left behind.