Reigning Formula 2 Champion Mick Schumacher steps up to F1 in 2021 with Haas.
| Full Name | Mick Schumacher |
| Nationality | German |
| Date of Birth | 22nd March 1999 |
| First Race | 2021 Bahrain Grand Prix |
| First Win | – |
| Wins | 0 |
| Poles | 0 |
| Podiums | 0 |
| Fastest Laps | 0 |
Mick Schumacher was born on 22nd March 1999 to mother Corinna Schumacher and father – then two-time F1 World Champion – Michael Schumacher. Mick was born and raised in Switzerland and began his racing career in 2008. To avoid the attention of being the son of the most successful F1 driver of all time, Schumacher used the pseudonym Mick Betsch; Betsch being his mother’s maiden name.
Schumacher progressed through the karting ranks, finishing third in the German Junior Kart Championship in 2013. He started racing in international karting series in 2014, under the name Mick Junior. In 2015, Schumacher progressed to racing cars and made his debut in the ADAC Formula 4 championship. He won one race in the series on his way to tenth place in the standings. Switching to the Prema team in 2016, Schumacher continued in the ADAC Formula 4 series and raced in the Italian F4 Championship. He finished as runner-up in both championships, winning nine races over the course of the year.
Schumacher competed in F3 machinery for the first time in the winter of 2016-17, racing in the 2016–17 MRF Challenge Formula 2000 Championship. He finished third in the championship, picking up four wins along the way. Then, in April 2017, Schumacher made his debut in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship. In a season which was won comfortably by Lando Norris, Schumacher finished only twelfth in the championship. He finished on the podium once, with a third place result at Monza.
The following season began in a similar fashion – with the highlights being two podium finishes at the Hungaroring and Zandvoort. However, Schumacher went on to win the final race of the Spa meeting and then won almost half of the remaining fifteen races – including a streak of five consecutive wins. He overturned a 67 point deficit to championship leader Dan Ticktum, to go from tenth in the title race before his Spa win to winning the title with 57 points more than Ticktum. He secured the title on home soil, at Hockenheim.
After his F3 title victory, it was announced that Schumacher would join the Ferrari Young Driver Academy. He went on to make his first appearance in an official F1 session at the in-season test in Bahrain in April 2019, driving Ferrari’s SF90. He went on to make an appearance with Alfa Romeo on the following day.
Schumacher joined Formula 2 in 2019 with the Prema team. After finishing eighth in the first Feature Race of the season in Bahrain, he started from pole position for the Sprint Race, in which he finished sixth. As had become a trademark of Schumacher’s competitive history, it took some time before he started recording solid results. In the first seven weekends of the season, Schumacher recorded only two top five finishes. That would change at the Hungarian race though. Once again, he started from pole in the Sprint Race – but this time went on to secure his first F2 win. He failed to record any more top five results for the rest of the season, and eventually finished twelfth in the championship.
Remaining with Prema in 2020, Schumacher had a much more consistent year. He failed to score in only four of the 24 races and ultimately emerged victorious in the championship battle – one of the most closely contested in the championship’s history. Schumacher took ten podium finishes over the course of the year, including wins at the Monza and Sochi Feature Races.
Aside from his F2 duties in 2020, Schumacher was due to make his debut at an F1 weekend with Alfa Romeo in Free Practice 1 at the Eifel Grand Prix, held at the Nurburgring. However, poor weather conditions prevented any running taking place on Friday, meaning Schumacher was unable to set a lap.
On December 2nd 2020, Schumacher was confirmed to be driving for the Haas team in the 2021 season. He made his maiden F1 weekend appearance less than two weeks later with the team in Free Practice 1 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. He went on to take part in the Young Driver Test at the Yas Marina Circuit with the team the week after.
Mick steps up to F1 nine years after his seven-time World Champion father Michael Schumacher last raced in the series. The Haas team is not expected to be competitive in 2021 – but it will give Schumacher an environment in which to gain valuable F1 experience.