Why Haas F1 Team Gave up on Mick Schumacher after Just Two Seasons

• On Thursday, the Haas F1 Team announced that it was replacing 23-year-old Mick Schumacher with 35-year-old journeyman Nico Hulkenberg for the 2023 Formula 1 season.

• The son of F1 great Michael Schumacher, Mick has scored in just two races in two season and finished on the lead lap just eight times in his 21 races this season.

• Haas team principal Guenther Steiner conceded that Schumacher crashes this season “were part of” the decision but were not the main factor.

Mick Schumacher will not be racing in Formula 1 next season after Haas opted to sign the experienced Nico Hulkenberg in his place.

Schumacher has been a tricky driver to judge throughout his two seasons with Haas.

The erudite 23-year-old has shown enough to suggest he has the potential to become a solid midfield driver—maybe in a similar vein to Hulkenberg—but it is equally not a travesty that he will be left off the grid.

His scoreless rookie season in 2021 was spent stymied by lackluster machinery, and while he comfortably got the better of then-teammate Nikita Mazepin, Mazepin was not exactly a stellar benchmark. It nevertheless bought Schumacher a little more time to show what he could do, which was a positive situation given his illustrious surname.

Schumacher’s 2022 has been mixed at best. There were points in Britain (finished eighth) and Austria (finished sixth) and more should have followed elsewhere but for reliability issues and strategic missteps. His record against experienced teammate Kevin Magnussen has improved. He suggested recently that changes made around the Canadian GP—the precise details of which he was reluctant to divulge—led to a sizeable step.

Schumacher has finished on the lead lap just eight times in his 21 races this season. And, while teammate Magnussen managed to score Haas first pole last week at Interlagos, Schumacher qualified 20th in the same session.

His 2022 season included a handful of violent accidents, most notably in Saudi Arabia and Monaco, that were expensive for Haas. A post-flag accident in the wet in Japan was particularly looked down upon by management.