No running but ‘valuable’ Friday for Schumi Jnr

Jon Wilde
Mick Schumacher

Mick Schumacher has his own "character" says Max Verstappen.

Mick Schumacher has insisted his Friday at the Nurburgring with the Alfa Romeo team had been “valuable” – despite having to miss out on an FP1 debut.

The 21-year-old, son of Michael Schumacher, the seven-time former World Champion, was scheduled to drive for Alfa Romeo in Friday morning practice for the Eifel Grand Prix.

But that session was cancelled for safety reasons because of the weather in Germany, with rain and fog preventing the medical helicopter from taking off.

Nevertheless, Schumacher, leader of the F2 championship, found it beneficial to be involved with a team with which he has been strongly linked to take a race seat in 2021, potentially at the expense of Antonio Giovinazzi who had been asked to make way for him on Friday.

“Obviously it’s been a shame not to get out,” said Schumacher, quoted by Motorsport.com.

“We knew the weather forecast didn’t look great. This time of the year in the Eifel is not the most sure it is going to be dry, so on that side we knew it might be wet and it was.

“In the end, the preparation was good, we’ve done a lot of meetings and I got so much knowledge out of it. It’s been very helpful.”

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While there is no F2 supporting F1 at the Nurburgring, Schumacher will remain on-site with Alfa Romeo for the remainder of the weekend to get embedded with the team.

“I’ll stay here with the team and we’ll go over the meetings, and also the procedures on how the actual F1 drivers are doing at the moment to just get an insight of how things are running,” added Schumacher.

“Definitely I think it’s going to be very valuable for me and I’m very much looking forward to it.”

Schumacher leads the F2 drivers’ standings with two races remaining this year and the Ferrari Driver Academy member stressed his focus lay on the secondary series for the time being despite regular links with a move into F1 for 2021.

“For me, it’s important to finish off the F2 season on a high,” said Schumacher. “We’re in a strong position now, that’s where my main focus is. For the rest, I can’t really tell you anything about that now.”

Ferrari have yet to confirm any alternative practice plans for Schumacher and fellow Academy member Callum Ilott, who had also been due to make a first F1 weekend appearance with Haas at the Nurburgring.

Schumacher said there were no plans for any further private testing at present, having recently driven a 2018-spec Ferrari at Fiorano, but would jump at any opportunity to conduct more F1 running.

“Any opportunity would be great to hop into the car,” said Schumacher. “F1 is the goal, F1 is the dream. So the more I get into it, it would be more of an opportunity for myself to show myself in that category.

“For me, the focus is on F2, trying to finish that on a high and focus on the championship.”

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Mick Schumacher

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