The most influential surname in the history of Formula 1 is soon to be seen again on the screens of a Grand Prix. Mick Schumacher, the son of the heptacampeón of the world, will premiere this Tuesday at the wheel of a Ferrari, the brand that turned his father into legend. It will be the first of two rehearsal days that the teams will carry out in Bahrain, after the grand prize that will be disputed this weekend. Schumacher, who will debut on the same stage in the first meeting of the Formula 2 championship, will also shoot on Tuesday in Sakhir, although the second day will be in an Alfa Romeo, also equipped with a Ferrari engine. This will be the first time that Mick, 20, will ride a contemporary prototype, since a couple of years ago he drove the Benetton with which his father fitted his first crown in 1994 in an exhibition held in Spa, where he premiered his box of victories.
The young German rider was proclaimed champion of the last edition of the European Formula 3, shortly before signing his contract as a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy, the training program of the builder from Maranello.
“I’m looking forward to what I think will be a great experience. But for the moment I will try to leave out everything that concerns the test because at the same time I am also very focused on what will be my debut in Formula 2, and I would like to be 100% focused on the weekend,” said Schumacher in the official Ferrari press release. The boy will compete in the event considered as the prelude to F1 with the Prema team, the same team through which Pierre Gasly and Charles Leclerc, current drivers of Red Bull and Ferrari, respectively, passed and who were proclaimed champions in 2016 (Gasly) and 2017 (Leclerc).
For Mattia Binotto, the new director of Il Cavallino Rampante’s structure, the entry of the Kaiser’s son is the most plausible demonstration of the Italian manufacturer’s interest in promoting young talent. “We are convinced of the great value of the Ferrari Driver Academy as a high-performance training formula, and the arrival of Charles Leclerc is the best proof of this”, considers the engineer.
