How Schumacher is really doing in Formula 2

Did you know Mick Schumacher won a race last weekend? Of course you did. It sent the motorsport world into overdrive and, given the amount of attention it received, you would have thought he'd won the Formula 2 drivers' title.

Of course, on a human level, it was impossible not to enjoy the victory. Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto, Mick's mother Corinna, his sister Gina and his manager - Sabine Kehm, who also managed his seven-time Formula 1 world champion father Michael - all watched Mick raise the trophy aloft.

As Ross Brawn commented: "It was an emotional moment seeing him raise his arms to the sky, and I can't deny that it reminded me of his father, Michael."

The surname has proved to be a double-edged sword for Mick. It's helped open doors and provide opportunities that other drivers could only dream of - Schumacher will likely never know the feeling of what it's like to fight and beg for a sponsor just to make the next round of a championship. He drives for arguably the best junior single-seater team out there in Prema Racing, and has done so since 2016.

But on the flip side, his name and current trajectory - competing at the level one step below Formula 1 and driving Ferrari's and Alfa Romeo's current F1 cars in testing this year - provide intense pressure. The kind of pressure we haven't seen inflicted on a driver at this level before, and probably will never see again. It's easy to forget the lad is just 20 years old.

So, with that context, how has the season gone? Yes, he won at the Hungaroring, but it was the reversed-grid race where the top eight finishers from the feature race are flipped.

Schumacher's season to date

What the weekend did show us is that Schumacher isn't scared - and is able - to roll up his sleeves and work with the team to fix problems. Not just in general, but throughout a weekend too.

He isn't a spoiled brat being pressured into racing and not caring about the result. He's fiercely competitive, committed and never happy unless he feels he has produced what he - not anybody else - decides is an acceptable performance, regardless of his name or family tree.

His fourth in qualifying at the Hungaroring showed natural talent - it was his first time driving the F2 car in the wet - but in the dry, the car understeered too much and he lost four positions in race one. He and the team worked tirelessly with data and the engineers to correct the issue, and while next day his lead combatant Nobuharu Matsushita may arguably have been able to make a move on a track where it is easier to overtake, Schumacher held on admirably in Hungary.

The fact that Matsushita stayed with him despite Schumacher having clean air to look after his tyres points to the fact that Schumacher still has more work to do in understanding the Pirellis, but Prema also has to work on its set-up to allow Schumacher to get the best out of the package.

Schumacher admitted as much, saying: "Nobu was a bit faster and could apply pressure even though I was in clean air. There is still work to do from our side."

There's no doubt Schumacher's pace has deserved more than 11th in the championship, but he hasn't adapted to F2 as quickly or as impressively as Zhou or Hubert

The main difference in F2 compared to F1 is the lack of sensors. While F1 teams have data an average person wouldn't even be able to understand relating to the tyres, the F2 drivers have to do everything in every session on feel. There are no sensors, there is no live data.

It's an incredibly difficult task not only to get the tyres in the right temperature window but to also keep them in that operating window while driving quickly in a way that doesn't degrade the tyres quicker than your rivals.

It's been Schumacher's biggest learning curve, coming from the European Formula 3 Championship, which he won, that ran Hankook tyres that only degraded slightly, not after a few laps. Schumacher has struggled with the tyres in the first half of the year, underlined by the fact that - despite only scoring two points in Hungary - his former F3 rival Guan Yu Zhou is seventh and more than 60 points ahead of Schumacher as the top rookie in the championship. Schumacher is 11th.

It points to a below-par debut for Schumacher so far, as Zhou came from the same European F3 championship as Schumacher - the same team, even, as they both drove for Prema. Zhou, now with Virtuosi Racing in F2, is the only rookie to reach treble figures in points so far this season.

The one mark in Schumacher's defence is that Zhou has an experienced, competitive team-mate. Sean Gelael, Schumacher's Prema partner, has had one of the most unlucky seasons in recent memory, but even with a strong year, he'd likely not be at Zhou's Virtuosi partner Luca Ghiotto's level.

Despite his own bad luck, Ghiotto is still fighting at the sharp end of the championship and has been for years, making him the perfect person for Zhou to learn from. Schumacher has comfortably bested Gelael this year so doesn't have the same benchmark.

Anthoine Hubert - last year's GP3 champion - is also eighth in the championship despite a point-less weekend in Hungary. He also drives for an Arden team that has been improving with the support of HWA, but still struggles for outright speed, making Hubert's performances appear exceptional - perhaps even better than Zhou's.

Arden scored a single reversed-grid win and finished second to last in the teams' championship last year. In the same year, Prema was fifth, but 173 points clear of Arden. Hubert has years of experience on the Pirellis, which does offer another strike in favour of Schumacher.

There's no doubt Schumacher has been outperformed by the likes of Hubert and Zhou. He has also arguably had more "bad luck" than most in the championship this year. Paul Ricard, where he was thumped out of the race by Gelael, and technical issues on the formation lap from seventh on the grid (pictured below) at the Red Bull Ring spring to mind immediately.

Had he finished where he started at Paul Ricard and the Red Bull Ring, eighth and seventh respectively, he'd have at least another 10 points - which would put him closer to Jordan King in 10th. It would have also given him a pole and a second-place starting spot on the grid for sprint races on those weekends, meaning he could easily be on par with Hubert in eighth had those two events gone his way.

A lesser driver might crumble here. Especially under the aforementioned pressure that his name brings. But those closest to Schumacher have spoken of his resolve under such pressure and his ability to remain focused in the face of such adversity.

"He is always pushing the team," says Prema team owner Rene Rosin. "Even in the down moments he is always a team player, I think that's really important. It's been quite a difficult first half of the season. We showed great potential and also we've been unlucky as well."

The team is full of talent alongside Mick. His engineer is Antoine Okla, while the squad's team manager Guillaume Capietto most recently engineered Charles Leclerc to his 2017 F2 title, as well as working with Pierre Gasly among a long list of others. But despite the talent and determination, it's still one of the most friendly and family-like teams in the paddock, which Mick fits into perfectly.

Rocking up on his beautiful Yamaha motorbike, Schumacher is rarely seen without a smile on his face in the paddock. While his media sessions are infrequent and usually consist of a bit of TV, a couple of official Prema quotes via Whatsapp after the races and official press conferences if he takes a top three, he always has time for pictures with fans in the paddock, and to eat in the F2 hospitality unit with the other drivers. He isn't a paddock enigma or primadonna, and while on-the-record interviews are sparse, he's not hiding away from the paddock, even in what Rosin refers to as the "down times".

"Having my first victory in F2 is a great thing, but I still need to work a lot on myself, whether I get into F1 in one year or two years or three years I don't know. Only time will tell" Mick Schumacher

The only thing that really marks out Mick is his hat - which is adorned with the 'Deutsche Vermogensberatung' logo that his father wore throughout his Ferrari career. Usually, he is also accompanied by Angelina Ertsou who - as well as co-managing the team as a whole alongside Rosin - has to field the myriad media requests coming in for all of its drivers (other than Mick, who Kehm handles). Across F2 and F3, Prema's squad has three drivers out of its five affiliated to F1 programmes, and more in its Formula Regional and F4 set-ups.

If there's any team equipped to deal with Mickmania, it's Prema. Kehm - also often alongside Mick in the paddock - has the honour of managing him having known him since he was a small boy after also managing Michael in F1.

Schumacher stated at the start of the season that he had no expectations for results in his rookie F2 year, but the well-respected Kehm says that doesn't mean Mick doesn't have high standards or the unwavering determination to improve and deliver.

"It's true that Mick is aware that he can always learn more, but that doesn't mean he didn't have expectations in terms of doing well," says Kehm. "He clearly had that and always has that. So some of the races have been really disappointing for him because he felt he was doing the right things and things didn't go his way.

"There has been an amount of bad luck and in F2, bad luck in the first race ruins the second race. So the whole weekend can look worse than it was. He needed to be patient and keep things together and I'm really happy for him that things worked out because it was about time."

Of course, the question of the pressure that Mick receives and how he copes under it is one Kehm has heard time and again. But she says that dealing with pressure has been a strength of Mick's for some time, out of necessity.

"I think he proved last year," says Kehm, "there was a similar situation in F3 last year - even if you can't compare these two series directly - there was a point where he just needed to work on being calm.

"Of course there are moments when you are not [calm]. But you know that you have to come back to being calm. Since he made that experience last year and before, that helped him.

"It would be a lie to say he is always calm and never disappointed about things that have happened. But he has been really good at getting it back and saying, 'This will happen, we are there, we really have the pace', because they had the data and saw the pace was there, that helped. That's a big strength of his, he really tries to take the positives.

"He so badly wanted it. It's so nice because he really enjoys himself so much and that's just nice that he finally did it."

Coming full circle, last Sunday will be the biggest positive of the season for Schumacher so far, although arguably his drive from 18th to fourth in the Red Bull Ring sprint race was a more impressive performance than his Hungaroring win.

That's not to take away from Sunday's win, which came with yet more pressure - not only to win, but to hold off a driver who has snatched a victory by passing rivals late on in a race this season already. But what does the weekend mean for the rest of Schumacher's year, with eight races remaining?

"It's an important step for his season," says Rosin. "Now it's time to get our heads down and keep pushing, focus on the small details like we are always doing.

"It's a learning process. Maybe we took a bit of time. If Baku was different without the spin maybe we'd already have the podium there.

"I think it could be a turning point now, so let's keep pushing as we have always done, him improving, him learning and everybody achieving what they deserve."

There's no doubt Schumacher's pace has deserved more than 11th in the championship, but he hasn't adapted to F2 as quickly or as impressively as Zhou or Hubert. But that doesn't mean he's a worse racing driver. While there's every chance the Hungaroring result could be Schumacher's best of the season, you'd expect him to be troubling the top five on a more regular basis in the second half of the year, in a car that was regularly taking poles, wins and podiums last year in the hands of current title leader Nyck de Vries, now at ART Grand Prix.

As de Vries often points out, there's no key to unlocking the secret of the Pirelli tyres. It's about the car set-up, conditions and how they are managed through a race that adds up to the winning formula. But Schumacher came as close as he has yet to marrying the necessary ingredients for F2 success in Hungary, and that means he should be challenging closer to the front for the remainder of the season.

A successful end to the year would be to regularly fight for the top-five finishes and podiums, continuing to learn ahead of what should be another year in F2. While next year is not officially arranged just yet, Mick says he is taking everything in his stride.

Asked if he felt ready for F1, he said: "Only time can tell. I think having my first victory in F2 is a great thing but I still need to work a lot on myself, whether I get into F1 in one year or two years or three years I don't know. Only time will tell. I'll do my best possible and try to learn as much as possible so that when I do that step I'll be ready and feel comfortable in whatever team I go to."

On his expectations for the coming races, he added: "I'm just happy to finally be over the period of bad luck and it's good to score a decent amount of points.

"Obviously the next race we're going to is Spa, so it's a very good track for myself where I feel very comfortable. Hopefully that result today will give me kind of a boost going into the summer break, and also going into the next race. I'm really looking forward to that."

He's dealing with the pressure well, and a strong end to 2019 would salvage plenty after a difficult start to the year. Schumacher has shown he's capable of dealing with the scrutiny. Now it's about getting on top of the intricacies of F2 and doing it regularly.