“Mick Schumacher found that F1 was harder than he thought”: Former World Champion explains why former Haas driver struggled to cope with F1’s pressure

Mick Schumacher arrived in F1 with plenty of promise after winning the 2020 F2 World Championship. He spent his debut season at Haas with teammate Nikita Mazepin and impressed everyone. The Kannapolis-based squad had the worst car of anyone in F1 that year, but Schumacher repeatedly outperformed Mazepin, which led to fans believing he will be a huge asset for them in years to come.

Unfortunately, 2022 did not go the same way for the youngster. Haas produced a slightly better car that could challenge for points, but Schumacher was unable to get a top 1o finish for the majority of the first half of the season. The fact that the returning Kevin Magnussen was scoring points on an almost-regular basis at the same time was not helping.

On top of that, Schumacher suffered multiple big crashes due to errors. This added to the bills for Haas, and team owner Gene and principal Guenther Steiner were not happy about it. All these factors contributed to the American outfit deciding to not renew the 23-year-old for the 2023 season.

Also read: Daniel Ricciardo reveals the reason why Lando Norris outperformed him in the McLaren MCL36 throughout the 2022 season

Mick Schumacher was always under a lot of pressure

The Schumacher name is huge in F1. Mick’s junior career did promise a lot, but most people recognize the surname because of his legendary father. Michael Schumacher is arguably the greatest F1 driver of all time and is a seven-time World Champion. A huge chunk of the F1 community expects his son to follow in his footsteps, which put him under a lot of pressure.

1996 F1 World Champion Damon Hill recently spoke about the former Haas driver’s departure in the F1 nation podcast. He feels that Schumacher found F1 a lot harder than he had imagined it to be. In his rookie year, his only competitor was Mazepin, but Magnussen’s experience and the VF-22’s ability to fight with other cars put added pressure on him.

“I think Mick was under a lot of scrutiny, a lot of pressure and I think that it got to him the end,” Hill said.

The 2022 season has come to an end and with that a chapter as well. I want to take this moment to thank everyone at Haas F1 for all their hard work over the last two years.
I’ve been able to meet incredible people and have built friendships that I will cherish for life. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/Nd4Myl7rIU

— Mick Schumacher (@SchumacherMick) November 21, 2022

“I don’t know where he gets his advice from,” the former Williams driver continued. “But I think he probably found it was harder than he thought in Formula 1 and there’s other aspects to it, which you only get from years of being in the sport.”

Ahead of the 2022 season finale, Haas revealed that Schumacher won’t continue with them in 2023. Nico Hulkenberg, who last raced full-time in 2019, will make a full return to the sport, replacing the German driver at Haas.

Also read: “Sebastian Vettel wasn’t happy when I won the race” – 9 GP winner Mark Webber recollects what led to friction between Red Bull pair

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• Damon Hill
• Haas
• Kevin Magnussen
• Mick Schumacher
• Nikita Mazepin