Why Mick Schumacher is a junior driver like no other

Mick Schumacher is under more pressure than perhaps any other driver in the history of motorsport who has coveted a seat in Formula 1. It's a bold claim, but when has the son of a driver as successful as Michael Schumacher got so close to F1 - or indeed, been signed as a junior at the very team where their father achieved the majority of their success?

Never is the answer. Social media and technology only intensifies the attention. Couple that with the tragic fact that Michael is no longer able to attend grands prix owing to the skiing accident he suffered in 2013, and it's almost as if the motorsport fanbase is reminding itself of the pace, skill, deviousness and general entertainment Michael brought, played out vicariously through his son. It's a fascinating story.

Last weekend in Bahrain, almost every TV outlet had produced dedicated previews of the Formula 2 season ahead. Last year many of these outlets served up only minimal coverage of the races - and yet the grid was strong enough to deliver three drivers to F1.

The field this year is weaker on the whole than in 2018. And since 20-year-old Schumacher was the dominant constant in the aforementioned previewing binge, it's not hard to conclude that he is the primary reason those broadcasters have decided to pay attention to F2.

Well over 30 journalists showed up for Mick's first F2 media session of the year at the Sakhir track. He was grinning away as he was asked 14 consecutive questions related to his Formula 1 debut. He rebuffed each one with suitably bland cookie-cutter responses such as 'I'm looking forward to my Formula 2 debut,' or 'All my preparation for this weekend has been focused on my F2 debut'.

Every year an F2 favourite becomes apparent and around halfway through the year the hype train pulls into the station, ready to speed them on to their next destination: F1.

Last year was an anomaly with Lando Norris leading the championship for the first half of the year and George Russell then taking over. The year before it was the dominant Charles Leclerc who wrapped up the series with a round to spare with the Prema Racing squad Mick now drives for.

Never in the history of modern GP2/F2 has a driver been anointed as a dead cert for an F1 seat before completing a single race in the main feeder formula. But the buzz around Schumacher has prompted even those who ought to know better to cast the rest of the F2 field into the shadows.

The name Schumacher really doesn't help in that sense. But if Mick's father's formidable reputation brings a certain level of expectation, Mick appears to wear it lightly. And the pressure doesn't look like penetrating the armour around him, which is just as tough as his father's.

Michael was always known as an immovable and stern competitor both inside and outside the car, and Mick has shown similar flashes while perhaps being slightly softer-edged in his demeanour.

"Being compared with my father was never a problem for me," explains Schumacher, speaking before the Bahrain F2 action took place. "For me it's pretty simple, being compared with the best driver ever in F1 history is the goal you want to achieve. I feel honoured to be compared with him. I can just learn and try to improve."

In terms of the Ferrari link, he adds: "I can learn so much from Ferrari because they have so much experience. My first impression was heart-opening, they were welcoming me into the family and that was always part of my family."

Questions were raised, answered and rebuffed regarding why Schumacher became just so quick around the mid-point of last season

One man who knows all about Ferrari juniors is Prema team owner Rene Rosin, who has helped launch Pierre Gasly, Antonio Giovinazzi, and Charles Leclerc into F1 within the past five years. That's a Red Bull, Ferrari and Alfa Romeo driver all in F1, with Rosin's team playing a key part in their development.

"There is a lot of expectation [on Mick], even before he signed with Ferrari," Rosin tells Autosport. "But for us, it's important that he works in the way he always has done and we will give him all of our best to make sure that he will perform."

Perform is something Schumacher has done up to now. It's not just his name that has produced this wave of enthusiasm around him. He was runner up in the hotly contested Italian and German Formula 4 championships in 2016.

Now, after stepping up from F4 and moving into Formula 3, where he won the European title in 2018, he is the latest in a long line of champions from that series - including Norris, Lance Stroll and Estaban Ocon - to attempt the leap towards Formula 1.

He approached the F3 season with the pragmatism needed to become a successful racing driver. He responded to a difficult start to the year by toughening up, and he went on to dominate the second half of the season.

"In that period I had the feeling that I improved a lot as a person and kind of really matured," he says.

Questions were raised, answered and rebuffed regarding why Schumacher became just so quick around the mid-point of last season. Rumours of preferential machinery circulated and were denied, but the form was permanent and Schumacher stormed to the title.

Throughout that, he was prepared for F1 perfectly by being shielded from the press. Very few media sessions were granted outside of public press conferences, and neither was he available on the telephone. He is like an F1 driver in that sense already.

But in F2 he will encounter a wave of publicity the likes of which he has never had to face before, indeed it has already started with that raucous Bahrain press gathering. It didn't seem to affect his F2 debut, though: he converted a solid 10th place starting position in the feature race into eighth at the finish, and the reversed-grid pole for the following Sunday race.

He got a good start and held the lead briefly before he fell back to an eventual sixth, but it was the kind of solid debut where he took everything in, digested the lessons on offer and didn't do anything stupid.

Prema has never been the best team in Bahrain, indeed a sixth and fifth were the best finishes last year for the squad with Nyck de Vries - who went on to finish fourth in the championship with three wins and two pole positions (from qualifying for the feature race, not including inherited sprint race poles).

"I would be lying if I said I'm completely satisfied with how the race went today but there wasn't much I could do," Schumacher said after the sprint race. "Unfortunately the lock-up in qualifying compromised the strategy for this race [because that tyre had to be used in the race]. All in all it was a weekend which taught us a lot, and I'm confident that we will translate that to the track."

Schumacher's test has come on merit, and Ferrari did the same for Raffaele Marciello and Antonio Giovinazzi at similar points in their careers

It wasn't a debut characterised by searing pace. But it demonstrated a measured approach that will serve him well in F2. Last year Norris won the season opener from pole, feeding the media frenzy that duly enshrined him as the next F1 star of the future. But he failed to win or even take another pole that season on his way to second in the championship.

That provesabove all else that the F2 title is winnable and F1 teams are impressable, even if you aren't the driver with the most raw speed.

The area where Schumacher will likely struggle with most is the same for all drivers in F2: the tyres. While it's a boring area for most, it's key in F2 because the Pirelli rubber has a very narrow operating window. Sensors are banned on race weekends, so drivers must prepare the problematic tyres on feel alone.

Rosin has had to help Leclerc, Gasly and Giovinazzi through the same process of learning the Pirelli rubber, and agrees it is a crucial area.

"On the last day in Barcelona [testing] Mick struggled a bit - we didn't achieve what we wanted on the two sets of tyres," Rosin says. "He's still a rookie and needs to learn how the tyres work.

"Coming from Formula 3 where you use the Hankooks [which are more durable and easier to prepare], the most important thing about F2 is to learn how to treat the Pirellis. It's quite fundamental. He's doing a good job so far and I don't see that it will be an issue.

"[Schumacher] is a fighter and he really enjoys the racing so we definitely expect him to be strong. But for the time being the main goal is to keep improving and hopefully we can achieve some nice results.

"He can do a job. What he showed in Formula 3 last year was pretty amazing. I have hope for a good season."

Schumacher may already declare this a good season, based on the fact that he has gained the backing of Ferrari and already been placed in its F1 car, last Tuesday in Bahrain. But that test didn't happen because of his name, as some may think.

The test came on merit, and Ferrari did the same for Raffaele Marciello and Giovinazzi at similar points in their careers, two drivers who at the time didn't enjoy anywhere near the attention Schumacher has now.

While more time in the sim would have been ideal for Mick before the test, Ferrari will consider that lack of experience in evaluating how he got on in the car. Ferrari will not have been looking for raw pace alone.

The quality of feedback Schumacher gave after each run, how consistent he was in executing the team's run plan, and his coolness under pressure will be what Ferrari wanted to observe and log.

Luckily, those are all strengths of Schumacher's. And speaking after the test - which he called "astonishing" - he spoke of how he felt immediately comfortable and how the team was "like home".

He also had the added benefit of running with Alfa Romeo on Wednesday, bagging more laps and getting even more experience of what a massive F1 team is like - F2 squads only have 10 people working on their cars and usually less than 20 staff in total.

Now, the question for Schumacher in F1 and F2 is the same. Does he have the raw pace required? We know the approach is correct and his performance under pressure has been adequate. But now he needs to deliver that blistering pace - at a higher level than F3 - which drivers must show before being taken seriously as future F1 drivers.

The pressure is on and he has shown himself adept at dealing with it so far. But just as the Schumacher name has been a positive in helping to open doors in his career, now it will deliver the most intense pressure and expectation - of an order of which no driver in junior formulas has ever had to deal with before.

He is ready for that but must prove he can cope with the pressure while proving to be one of the fastest drivers in junior single-seaters. And that's never an easy task.