F1 News: McLaren Makes Mick Schumacher Announcement With Poignant Link To Father Michael
McLaren has revealed on social media that Mick Schumacher will carry out reserve driver responsibilities for them as well as Mercedes.
Similarly to previous years, McLaren and Mercedes will be sharing the reserve driver in the upcoming 2023 season.
The German driver lost his permanent seat with Haas at the end of 2022 after joining the team in 2021. It was later confirmed that Schumacher has signed with Mercedes in the reserve driver role, although he is keen to make a comeback to a permanent seat in 2024.
McLaren shared to the news to Twitter, posting:
"McLaren will be able to call on Mick Schumacher as a reserve driver during the 2023 F1 season as part of our arrangement with Mercedes.
"Welcome to the family, Mick."
The team added that this was a "full circle" moment for Mick as his father Michael Schumacher, has worked very closely with new McLaren team principal Andrea Stella. The team continued:
"Full circle. McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella worked closely with Mick’s father, the legendary Michael Schumacher, as his Performance Engineer."
Mick recently competed alongside his godfather and recently retired F1 legend Sebastian Vettel in the Race of Champions in Sweden over the weekend, where he came second. This was another moment of following in his iconic father's footsteps, who also competed in the event alongside Vettel prior to his horrific skiing accident.
February is filled with important F1 dates with the teams revealing the 2023 cars/liveries and pre-season testing starting in Bahrain on 23-25. The next date to make a note of is Friday 3 February when Red Bull will be revealing the RB19 that Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez will be driving in 2023.
Mercedes will be revealing the highly anticipated W14 on February 15 but it is yet to be confirmed if Schumacher will be involved with the event.