Bernie Ecclestone thinks it’s great that Mick Schumacher is in Formula 1 this season. As for the appointment to the Haas F1 Team for the 22-year-old rookie, not so much.
Schumacher, the son of F1 legend Michael Schumacher, has been placed with Ferrari’s support at the small American team Haas for 2021. Haas scored just three points in the F1 Constructors’ Championship in 2020, and little more is expected of the backmarker team this season.
“(Schumacher) is a name that has to be in Formula 1,” former F1 chief executive Ecclestone said in a video interview at AvD Motor und Sport Magazin on Sport1. “But I feel a little sorry for him, because he has great qualities with which he could achieve more than with the people he is with now. I’m not sure he can learn that much there.
“He won’t have anyone there who can teach him much. He is on his own. The perfect team for Mick would be a team like Red Bull, who have the skills to win races and the people who can support him properly. His performance in Formula 2 was great, but it won’t be so easy to replicate with his current team.”
Schumacher won the F2 championship last season.
If there is a ray of hope for Schumacher in 2021, technical partner Ferrari is giving extra backing to Haas this year and has even reassigned staff to a special building at Maranello.
Still, Ecclestone thinks 2021 will be very difficult for the young German, who just turned 22 on March 22.
“He’s got a big problem already,” Ecclestone, 90, said. “He’s got the burden of a big name he has to wear. People will say ‘He’s not as good as his father’.
“Now we will see that he has an even bigger handicap with the car he drives. But sometimes these things are good, too. Sometimes you have a tough time and then you develop.”
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