Mick Schumacher still believes he has what it takes to become a top driver in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship despite the German losing his seat with the Haas F1 Team at the end of the 2022 season.
The twenty-three-year-old spent two years with Haas but will be replaced by countryman Nico Hülkenberg ahead of the 2023 campaign, with Schumacher also losing his place within the Ferrari Driver Academy. He scored points on only two occasions during his time with Haas, an eighth-place finish in the British Grand Prix of 2022 and a sixth in the very next race in Austria.
His season, however, was blighted by big crashes in Qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix that ruled him out for the rest of the weekend, and during the Monaco Grand Prix where he lost control and crashed into the barriers.
However, it is not all bad news for the German, with Schumacher moving to the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team as their reserve driver for 2023.
Despite losing his racing seat, Schumacher has ambitions to return to the cockpit and compete at the very front of the grid, feeling that he can achieve great things should be get another opportunity down the line.
“Many people have already said it but I think it is worth saying again – nobody was fully a complete driver in Formula 1 after two years and there is a lot to learn still,” Schumacher is quoted as saying by GPFans.com.
“I intend to learn those bits and pieces and I’m sure that once I put everything together, as I have shown in junior categories, I’m sure that I can be a top driver in Formula 1 as well.
“For me personally, I know the trend which was there is what matters. You can see that consistent improvement across the course of the season and I have achieved some of the things that I wanted to achieve.
“Obviously, I haven’t managed everything but I wasn’t sure that I was going to reach those because it is Formula 1. It is obviously very different to all of the junior categories that I have had before.”
