Mick Schumacher: Can he follow in his father’s footsteps and become F1 Champion in the future?

Mick Schumacher will embark on his F1 journey in 2021 after being crowned 2020 F2 Champion, beating Callum Ilott to the title by 14 points.

The 21-year-old German didn’t have the end to the season he would have hoped for after the Prema rushed into the pits for new tyres early on in the race and could only recover to 18th.

Luckily for Schumacher, his main title rival Ilott was unable to close the gap as he slid down the order during the late stages of the race and finished in tenth.

Let’s talk about the progression of the German as he spent two years in both Formula 2 and 3 and in the second season he went on to take the Driver’s Championship.

He jumped into F3 after successful seasons Formula 4 and in Formula 2000 saw him finish second in the Championship twice in F4 and third in Formula 2000.

The 2017 Formula 3 season was a debut for Mick as the German looked to take what he had learned previously in the other Championship he fought in and get to grips with the F3 car.

Credit: Formula 1

In two out of the three opening races at Silverstone, he scored points after finishing eighth and sixth, but then a 17th-place finish in the last race put a bit of a damper on the previous two performances.

He didn’t have to wait long after that to score his first F3 podium as he stepped on the lowest step of the podium as he finished third at Monza.

That was the only podium he scored in his rookie campaign as a Formula 3 driver. He finished 12th in the Driver’s Championship with 94 points from 30 races which averages roughly three points each race but obviously, he didn’t score in every single race and missed out on the points on a few ocassions.

The start of the second season didn’t start well with a 16th place finish in the Championship, but he would turn the tide around and score his first F3 podium of the season in the last race at the Hungaroring.

He would return to the podium in Zandvoort and was on the top step of the podium in the final race around Spa-Francorchamps.

Schumacher went on to feature on the podium 12 times which included five wins in a row which stretched from race one at the Nürburgring to race two at the Red Bull Ring and in his final race in Austria he missed out on top spot by a second as Prema teammate Robert Shwartzman won the race.

It was certainly a case of a tryout season in the first one and push to the limits in the second season as he won the F3 Championship with 365 points, 58 points ahead of Dan Ticktum who finished second and 71 points more than third-placed Juri Vips.

Credit: Formula 1

Prema decided to promote the German into Formula 2 after being crowned champion and he showed that he deserved the opportunity to do so.

Similarly, as in F3 his first season in the highest junior category didn’t go to plan. It was a season of getting to know the machinery and having the chance to push in that same car the next season.

He started the season by scoring points in both Bahrain races where he recorded an eighth-place finish in the Feature Race and a fifth-place finish in the Sprint Race.

Only a handful of points finishes saw Schumacher create his biggest highlight of the 2019 F2 season. After finishing eighth in the Feature Race around the Hungaroring gave the German a reverse-grid pole position.

Starting from first at the chequered flag he finished first and his first podium saw him step on the top step as he grabbed the much-needed points after a sub-par season.

In his first season in Formula 2, he finished in 12th-place in the Championship similarly to where he finished in his first Formula 3 season, but this time only managed to pick up 53 points in 24 races averaging 0.45 points per race.

Credit: Formula 1

He was only in the points nine times out of the 24 races he raced in which shows the learning curve that the 21-year-old has been on.

The start of the 2020 season was okay from the young German. He finished outside the points positions in the first race but he picked up 14 points in the following two races at the Red Bull Ring.

At the Hungaroring, the Prema Racing driver scored two podiums as he finished third in both the Feature and the Sprint Race as he looked to pick up some Championship form by picking up 25 points from the weekend.

Silverstone wasn’t as enjoyable as it could have been for Schumacher, but nevertheless he managed to pick up a podium in the second weekend in the United Kingdom. After starting second for the Sprint Race, the 21-year-old drove so well and stayed in second to earn his third podium of the season.

A spree of five back-to-back podiums propelled him in the Championship and really shone a light on him as a real title contender for the Championship.

Sochi saw him come out with a first-place finish and a third-place finish as the Formula 2 Championship entered the final stages in the Middle East.

Schumacher did enough in the end to fend off the challenge from all the others as he had a healthy margin going into the last two weekends of the Formula 2 calendar and was crowned F2 Champion by the end of it all.

Credit: Sky Sports

In the middle of all of this drama, Haas announced that Mick and fellow F2 rival Nikita Mazepin will be replacing the departing Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean for 2021 and beyond as they have both side multi-year deals with the team.

Speaking exclusively to Prost International’s Adrian Kita, the German looked ahead of what he can expect for the 2021 season and the targets and aspirations he may have going forward and before he starts his F1 career almost 30 years on from when his father started his career at Benetton in 1991.

“Well I obviously think the targets do change a bit in F1. To be honest, I haven’t really put my mind to it yet regarding my expectations for the upcoming season.

“I think mainly it will be to still develop as a driver in the F1 series and try to grow as a driver but also to integrate into the team as much as I can and that’s for me the main goal.

“About the results, I haven’t really has time to focus about these as I was focussing on my F2 Championship because I still had to win that one so I guess in the next few days I will put some thought into that and kind of pay more attention to them.

“I am obviously going to Abu Dhabi, to try and learn about the car and get more prepared for Formula 1.”

He jumped into the Haas 2020 car like he said he would’ve in Abu Dhabi. He made a Free Practice appearance replacing Kevin Magnussen for the first session.

Schumacher completed 23 laps in the hour-long session as he got used to what the car was like and in the process finished the session in 18th ahead of his teammate for the session, Pietro Fittipaldi.

Credit: Formula 1

Two titan surnames in the sport were able to go head-to-head as teammates and it was the Schumacher surname that prevailed as Mick was nearly three seconds faster than Pietro.

We know that the German will now be in the elite set of racing and is doing his surname proud it just makes most fans ask the question will he use Haas as a way to try and gain a place at Ferrari in the future just like his father made his way from Benetton to Ferrari all those years ago.

The Ferrari Driver Academy will certainly have their eyes on Schumacher in the 2021 season and how he steadily progresses in the sport. Haas have only managed to pick up three points in the whole of the 2020 campaign so Gunther Steiner will hope that the F2 Champion can give the team a boost and learn the car as quick as possible.

F1 pre-season testing is set to take place at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona in March 2021. Between March 2nd and March 4th, the drivers will have the opportunity to get back behind the wheel for the first time in 79 days but for some like Schumacher and Mazepin who have made their way up from F2, it will end an 86 day wait to get back in the car.

Two weeks later, it will be time for the first Grand Prix of the season as they fly out to Melbourne, Australia and will start a 23-race calendar which will be an exciting experience for all to return back to Australia as the race this year was cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

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