Mick Schumacher’s original contract with the Ferrari Driver Academy will come to what a source consulted by Motorsport.com has called a “natural end” after this season.
Although there has been no confirmation from Haas, it is taken for granted in the paddock that Mick Schumacher will not be renewed by the US-owned team for a third season in 2023, and Antonio Giovinazzi is the favorite to get his seat alongside Kevin Magnussen. .
The rest of the options open on the grid are reduced to Alpine and Williams, and Mick Schumacher’s close friend, Esteban Ocon, supports him as a candidate for the French team.
He has also been linked to AlphaTauri, although now Colton Herta has positioned himself as the Faenza favorite should a vacancy arise.
There is a possibility that Mick Schumacher will run out of chances in the driver market in the coming days, which could leave Germany without a representative on the 2023 grid, unless Nico Hulkenberg is chosen by Alpine.
Mick Schumacher joined Ferrari at the beginning of 2019, when he was announced as a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy, having won the European F3 championship the previous year.
He thus joined a strong quarry that included Callum Ilott, Marcus Armstrong, Robert Shwartzman and Enzo Fittipaldi .
At the time, the team stressed that his father Michael’s connections with Ferrari were not the cause of the decision to sign him, and that he had earned the support of the Academy on his own merits.
Team Principal Mattia Binotto commented: “For someone like me, who has known him since birth, there is no doubt that welcoming Mick to Ferrari has a special emotional meaning, but we have chosen him for his talent and for the human and professional qualities that he has already shown despite his young age”.
He conducted his first F1 test with the SF90 in Bahrain in April 2019, before having a second day with Alfa Romeo the following day.
He raced with the support of Ferrari for the Prema Formula 2 team in 2019 and 2020, winning the title in his second season.
In September he racked up more F1 mileage with the 2018 SF71H at Fiorano ahead of what was to be his first practice session with Alfa Romeo at the Nurburgring .
However, bad weather meant that practice for the 2020 Eifel GP was cancelled. He finally made his debut in an FP1 with Haas in Abu Dhabi.
The Ferrari connection helped land him a seat at Haas in 2021, and after a frustrating season with an uncompetitive car, he continued with the team this year.
An unfortunate string of crashes did not help his progress, but he scored his first points with an eighth place finish at Silverstone, followed by a sixth place finish in Austria.
Mick Schumacher was considered at the time as a possible future Ferrari driver, but his support within the team has waned of late.
Given that Charles Leclerc and, more recently, Carlos Sainz have landed long-term contracts, it is obvious that there is no place for Mick Schumacher on the horizon at the Scuderia.
Additionally, Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou are established at Ferrari partner team Alfa Romeo with the Chinese driver expected to be confirmed shortly for 2023. Under the current deal with Sauber, the title sponsor is no longer entitled to one of the seats for a driver affiliated with Ferrari.
