Mick Schumacher's Formula 1 Comeback: Hakkinen Weighs In
Mar.4 - Mick Schumacher's Formula 1 career may not be completely over, according to Mika Hakkinen.
More than 20 years ago, two-time title winner Hakkinen famously battled with Mick's father Michael for the world championships.
At the announcement of the Laureus award nominees on Monday, the 56-year-old Finn insisted that Mick - now focusing on WEC after losing his Haas race seat in 2022 - might still be able to return to F1.
"He has experience in Formula 1. He has experience in various categories. He is young. These are all good things," Hakkinen told Sport1.
However, he said Mick's initial two-year career on the grid ended because of his high-profile errors.
"Formula 1 is a very challenging place. You make three or four mistakes and break the car and that is not a stroke of luck for the team," said the former McLaren driver. "Teams don't like that. They don't like spending so much money on repairs to your car.
"Mick has had a few problems that have been very damaging to his career. But he still has a chance to come back. The door is open. He just needs to find the right people to talk to."
Hakkinen admits that the younger Schumacher may have survived the opening two years of his career back in his day.
"When I was driving, I took more and more risks in Formula 1 and also crashed," he said. "But back then I had team managers who supported me. When you're a driver, you try to get everything out of it and take risks.
"The team managers didn't ask me to drive slowly and bring the car safely to the finish. They told me to step on the gas! But now you have different structures, a different budget and not as much money available. The money you spend on repairs you can't spend on further car development," added Hakkinen.
Hakkinen also told France's L'Equipe newspaper that McLaren driver Lando Norris has "everything it takes to be champion" in 2025.
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No, his F1 career is realistically over for good & if he truly had a chance, it would've already happened, but teams have clearly overlooked him one by one, so thinking anything would change in this regard is unrealistic.
The long-time reality is simply that a driver doesn't really stand a chance for a full-time return after more than one season away unless said driver has vast previous F1 racing experience & or sporting success in the series, both areas, in which Mick lacks.
Likewise, Zhou's full-time return chances will almost certainly also be over if/when he fails to return next year (Andretti is his only option & they clearly target an American-vastly experienced driver pairing, with Zhou failing to meet either criteria) unless a Chinese manufacturer were to join in F1 in the longer term.
Bottas & Perez, on the other hand, would stand a chance even beyond 2026 as they don't lack in either area, not to mention Perez has marketing area & financial benefits with him, although even one of them might struggle to return beyond next year anymore as all established teams clearly have their driver priorities sorted for the medium term & changes are unlikely unless something drastic were to happen.
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