Maurizio Arrivabene says Mick Schumacher will always be welcome at Maranello as the young German continues to show his potential in the FIA European Formula 3 Championship, although it is important for him to grow as a driver without putting too much pressure on his young shoulders.
Schumacher won all three races at the Nurburgring last weekend for Prema Theodore Racing and is just three points off Daniel Ticktum at the top of the Drivers’ Championship with two rounds of the season remaining, and he is amongst a few highly-rated drivers not currently linked to a Formula 1 young driver programmes.
Michael Schumacher had a long-term relationship with Scuderia Ferrari that saw him take five of his seven World Drivers’ Championships, so it would always be natural for his son to be linked to the Italian outfit.
Arrivabene, the current Ferrari team principal, says it is purely up to the driver and his family to decide whether or not to accept a place in the fabled Ferrari Driver Academy which, in 2019, will see it’s first driver race for the works Ferrari team, when Charles Leclerc steps up to replace Kimi Räikkönen alongside Sebastian Vettel.
“Concerning Mick Schumacher, I think the most important thing is to let him grow, without giving pressure,” Arrivabene is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “The recent results are very, very good, and I wish to him a great career.
“With a name like this, that wrote historical pages of Ferrari history, the door of Maranello is always open, of course. But without burning the step. That is a family decision, I mean a Schumacher family decision.
“But let the guys have fun. I always repeat this – be focussed, concentrated, but in the meantime have fun, and to grow slowly, but certainly, and then we’ll see about the future.
“How can you can say ‘no’ at Maranello to a name like this?”
Schumacher has also been linked with a potential move to Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda, although Helmut Marko has poured fire onto those rumours, saying it would be too soon for them to consider him for a race seat, whilst he is racing in a Mercedes-Benz-powered car in Formula 3.
“Mick is not on our list,” said Marko to German publication Auto Bild. “We do not have any contact with him at all.”
Should Schumacher finish inside the top three in the European Formula 3 Championship standings in 2018 he will have earned enough points to apply for a Formula 1 Superlicence, and although likely to end up in the FIA Formula 2 championship next season, it cannot be too long before the Schumacher name is back on a Formula 1 grid. His future appears to be in his own hands, at least for now.
