Mick Schumacher admits 'shyness' hurt F1 career

Feb.18 (GMM) Mick Schumacher believes his shyness partly explains his reputation in Formula 1 as a crash-prone driver.

After two seasons on the Mercedes reserve bench in the wake of his two-year Haas career, the German has set aside his F1 dream for now to totally focus on the WEC with Alpine.

However, he thinks he still has something to prove.

“When I look at the current grid, I have no doubt that I could keep up,” Schumacher, the son of F1 legend Michael Schumacher, told Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

“It would be nice if I got another chance and could prove it. Because I think that a lot of people wrongly labelled me.”

Indeed, former Haas boss Gunther Steiner’s most outspoken criticism of Schumacher before deciding to oust the 25-year-old in 2022 was about the amount of huge crashes he had.

“My reputation was more determined by negative public comments about me than by what I’m good at,” Schumacher now says. “I had the image of a crash driver.”

He thinks a big reason for that isn’t just the crashes, but how devastatingly spectacular they were – like when his Haas split completely in two in Monaco.

“That’s true,” Schumacher confirmed, “but what is not taken into account is that our car was designed for this. The design meant that it would split in the event of a side impact. Other cars would have survived in one piece.

“I didn’t communicate that at the time because I didn’t want to provoke more friction with the team. I was unsettled and didn’t defend myself because I was shy. But ultimately you need self-confidence and support to perform.

“I would defend myself more today,” the German added. “I have matured as a person and would no longer say ‘everything is fine’ so quickly, but I’d represent my point of view internally and externally more uncompromisingly.

“I had to go through this maturation process to become the person I am today.”

Meanwhile, Mick’s mother Corinna is furious that one of the perpetrators of a blackmail plot against the family, involving secret photos of Michael’s current health condition, has escaped jail.

She said in a statement: “We have appealed against what we consider to be a far too lenient sentence.”

She said the individual in question was “in my opinion the mastermind behind this whole thing”.

“What still shocks me most is the massive breach of trust. He should be punished for this to deter potential copycats.”