Gene Haas reckons Mick Schumacher has a lot of potential to succeed in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, but the German has cost the Haas F1 Team a lot of money by having big crashes, money the team cannot afford to waste.
Schumacher was brought into Formula 1 at the beginning of the 2021 season and dominated his then team-mate Nikita Mazepin, but 2022 has seen him up against Kevin Magnussen, and although he has brought the team home some points, his most memorable moments seem to be when he has suffered accidents on track.
Qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was his first big accident of 2022, while he has also suffered huge crashes during the Monaco Grand Prix and in practice, most recently, for the Japanese Grand Prix.
Schumacher’s future within Formula 1 beyond 2022 remains uncertain, with rumours rife that he is set to be replaced by his countryman Nico Hülkenberg for 2023, although Antonio Giovinazzi also remains in with a chance of making a comeback of his own.
“In this sport, being kind of a rookie driver, the sport just doesn’t allow it – it’s just too expensive,” said Haas, the owner and founder of the Haas F1 Team, to The Associated Press at the recent NASCAR event at Las Vegas, as quoted by Crash.net. “If you make any mistakes in driver selection, or strategy, or tyre selection, it is costing you millions of dollars.
“I think Mick has got a lot of potential, but you know he costs a fortune and he’s wrecked a lot of cars that have cost us a lot of money that we just don’t have.
“Now, if you bring us some points, and you are [Max] Verstappen and you wreck cars, we’ll deal with it. But when you are in the back and you wreck cars, that’s very difficult.”
