Mick Schumacher's Formula 1 future is still in his own hands, but he "costs a fortune", according to owner Gene Haas. Schumacher is yet to secure a 2023 seat in F1, with Nico Hulkenberg waiting in the wings to secure the second seat alongside Kevin Magnussen should the younger German depart. Although Schumacher has scored 12 points in 2022, he has also had two big crashes and got a verbal warning from team boss Gunther Steiner at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. With four races to go in 2022, he still has a shot at retaining his seat for next season, but Haas wants to see his driver grab it.
Haas on Schumacher
"I think Mick has got a lot of potential, but you know he costs a fortune and he’s wrecked a lot of cars that have cost us a lot of money that we just don’t have," Haas told the Associated Press. "Now, if you bring us some points, and you are [Max] Verstappen [winning races] and you wreck cars, we’ll deal with it. "But when you are in the back and you wreck cars, that’s very difficult. "If he wins the next [race] he’s in [for 2023]. Somewhere in between, there is a grey area. "We started off the year with resounding success [including fifth for Magnussen in Bahrain] and I think the middle season wasn’t too good, and we just seem to fall back into our usual way of running. "We’ve got to get out of that, but Formula 1 is so tough. "When I started [in racing] there was six seconds between the leaders and the back and you had a 107% rule [to filter out the no-hopers]. "Now we’re all within two seconds, so it’s gotten a lot tougher and there are no bad teams anymore." Prior to the United States Grand Prix, Haas are eighth in the standings on 34 points - level with AlphaTauri in ninth. However, they have not scored a point since the Austrian GP in July - and have only ever scored one point in the United States GP - courtesy of Romain Grosjean's 10th place in their debut year of 2016.
Most read
