Interview Conducted and Written by Owen Bradley
Mick Schumacher speaks to Owen Bradley about his Formula One dream, Where he could be racing in 2025, his Le Mans 24 Hours debut and his debut season in the World Endurance Championship in this exclusive interview.
Mick Schumacher currently competes in the FIA World Endurance Championship, alongside being a reserve driver for the Mercedes F1 team. Schumacher speaks on his debut season in WEC (World Endurance Championship) and his Le Mans 24 Hours debut, as well as his F1 dream.
OB - Owen Bradley
MS - Mick Schumacher
This interview occurred before the World Endurance Championship Sao Paulo Round.
OB - So Mick, how has everything been going recently?
MS - "So far so good, we had a couple of meetings, I did the track walk and now doing the media round, after that I'm hopping into the car to make sure everything is fine and then we're back off to the hotel."
OB - You're back here at Interlagos, is that a personal favourite track of yours?
MS - "It actually is yes, definitely in the Top 3. When I came here in Formula One I enjoyed it straight away, in '21 obviously a great car to come here with, Haas a bit less so but I think overall it was just an amazing track to experience so very excited to see how it is going to be with the WEC car, the Hypercar obviously being a bit heavier, less downforce and the track seems to be a bit dirty so hopefully throughout the weekend we will be able to clean it so that when we get to qualifying and the race, everything is going to be just fine."
OB - How has everything gone so far this year do you think?
MS - "I would say pretty unlucky actually. We've had a few instances or incidents where we should have had points easily, we should have probably been in the Top 6 or Top 5 and there's been a couple of times where we haven't quite been able to deliver that, for one reason or another."
"I think that at Le Mans, we had a really strong car and that we were set on for a very good result, but unfortunately we had a double DNF (Did Not Finish) for the team, so we didn't manage to get to that point. But we are very happy to now, get an opportunity to sort of redeem ourselves a bit from that event, hopefully with us being able to understand the project that we have a bit better, the car that we have a bit better and then hopefully just putting everything together and getting a good result here, that would be ideal and that's what we are shooting for at the moment."
OB - What do you think you can do in the remainder of this season? Will podiums be possible to achieve do you think?
MS - "It obviously depends a bit on certain circumstances that I can't comment on here, but frankly, I don't see a reason why not. I think we have the speed, we have the skillset to do that, we have very experienced drivers and very fast drivers in both cars and I think that if everything goes well, we should be able to fight for it."
OB - How have you managed to adapt from the single seaters, open-wheelers to these closed-cockpit, heavier cars in WEC?
MS - "I'm still trying to get used to it, to be honest. It's obviously not quite easy to always do that, but overall I felt like I've kind of been able to manage the switch between the two. Basically, the two cars are so different in some ways, that actually it makes it easier to shift from one side to another, and I am doing quite a lot of testing still with F1."
"I recently just sat in the McLaren and also obviously in the Alpine at Paul Ricard, so I feel like I have been able to really handle it quite well, going from one series to another, but it is definitely challenging when I'm here to kind of work with the weight that we have, and obviously the {Alpine Hypercar} project is quite young still which makes some of the tools a bit analogue if that makes sense? and not quite as fluid as we would like it to be yet, so we are still in the development phase I would say and I think it will take the whole year until we really get to a decent spot, and I think that's just down to the nature of the project for one, and the series/championship, but you can really feel that with every day that we work on this car, we are getting better and better, so there is definitely an upwards trend."
OB - You mentioned that you have been testing with some of the Formula One teams, are you able to comment on where you think you will be racing next season?
MS - "We'll have to wait and see, I think obviously everything is very open in Formula One at the moment, I mean there is still essentially three or four teams that definitely have seats available and uncontracted seats, which means, as some of the other drivers have commented, one particular driver is the cork in the bottle I guess you could say, and the moment that he decides where to go, it will definitely open up a lot of those movements in the other teams and I think it will go pretty quickly after that."
"Now, saying that, a lot of teams don't have the pressure to make a decision right now, which also leaves me a bit in the air of course for that, but of course Formula One will always have priority in everything that I do, so as long as that's not completely closed for me, I will wait and focus on that."
OB - For this year, you'll have done eight rounds of the WEC, all of the testing that comes with that, alongside your Formula One and media duties - How do you handle such a busy schedule?
MS - "I don't know. It's definitely been a very long year already, with a lot of travelling and with a lot of commitments on top of just racing and personally I think I'm just at a point where I'm just very excited for the summer break, have 2-3 weeks off and not think about anything too much."
"Obviously It's still going to be a very busy time for me, just because things can happen at any moment, so you have to stay vigilant and stay alert, but obviously try and also try to recover some of that energy that you spent in the first part, because the second part is not going to get any easier. I'm trying to take things day by day but also look ahead to moments where I'm off."
OB - Part of what might have taken a lot out of you in the first part of the season, was Le Mans. How do you reflect on your Le Mans 24 Hours debut? and do you think there is potential to do better next time?
MS - "Well actually, it didn't take much out of me because I still got like 10 or 12 hours of sleep! I mean we didn't really get too far into it so after six hours, obviously everything was done. I, for some reason, couldn't really sleep that night, I went to bed at like two in the morning or something, just because I couldn't grasp what was going on in that sense."
"Obviously very disappointing that we didn't and weren't able to stay in the race, because I think we had a very strong car, I think we were fighting with the #83 Ferrari for a very long time in the beginning, and I think we were quite up to speed with them. Obviously then we took the wrong decision, but the same {decision} that about 80% of the grid took, the choice to go onto the wets. So, I think there is a lot of potential in there and we saw it and that was really important to us, we would rather be fast and not finish, than finish and be slow, so I think that's definitely a positive that we can take away from it."
OB - Obviously it wasn't just you that retired the race as a fan favourite, and there are many fan favourites on the grid like Valentino Rossi and Jenson Button. What has it been like sharing the grid this year, with some very big names and faces?
MS - "Well you never really know when those drivers are in the car, so you just see the same car going around the track, so in that sense it hasn't really been all that special or different!"
OB - Would you like to see other drivers from perhaps Formula One or other series make the switch to WEC and Endurance Racing?
MS - "I mean, I do hear a lot of people are interested in WEC, a lot of the drivers who don't get a shot at Formula One or are on the way out of Formula One. I think that WEC has become a very valid second option next to Formula One, I have enjoyed my time here, but for me there is nothing better than Formula One, so my constant thoughts are about Formula One and that's what I really want to do."
"Obviously when I'm here at a race weekend, I'm here to work in WEC and that's obviously what I focus on, but definitely my ultimate goal is to be back in a Formula One car."
OB - In both Formula One and WEC, there are no races in your home country, Germany, do you think that needs to change? and would you perhaps add more races onto the WEC calendar which currently has eight races?
MS - "I think they are trying to come back to Germany, obviously it's a bit difficult at the moment with everything going on, but hopefully with the future coming and the new generation of cars, maybe Germany will be more willing to get Formula One back to Germany, which would be amazing. But I don't have much information on that.
For WEC, I think more races are great but also I think you shouldn't overdo it because WEC is a great championship also because you have the ability to race in different championships at the same time as WEC, so if you make more races, it will definitely compromise some drivers who are doing other races like ELMS at the same time, or Formula E, so people could be forced to choose between one or the other, which might then lead to less competition on track."
A special thanks to Mick Schumacher and the Alpine Endurance Team for this interview, DIVEBOMB wishes the team the absolute best of luck for the rest of the WEC season!
You can also watch this interview on YouTube, by clicking this link: https://youtu.be/MHqre_7FTU4
Comments