Why Schumacher’s year out of racing has been no less busy

Ever felt like taking a nap while watching the first practice session of a Formula 1 Grand Prix?

If so, you may as well apply for a job as reserve and simulator driver for an F1 team – provided, of course, you can handle 1000bhp four-wheelers and don’t get dizzy from being bounced around inside a carbon fibre capsule on pneumatic rods for hours on end.

Mick Schumacher isn’t bad at all of that. Although, he confesses to GP Racing as we sit down for a chat in Mercedes’ enclave within the Singapore GP paddock, sleeping through FP1 isn’t always easy. But it’s also part of the job to be able to work well past midnight in that phase of a grand prix weekend…

“No, luckily I’m in a hotel,” he laughs at the suggestion that he’d have to curl up on a bench somewhere in the engineering office on those long Fridays when he’s on Mercedes sim duties. “It looks like a prison, though. Obviously, no windows, because you want to have as little light as possible, but… it’s necessary.”

This is a typical daily routine for someone with Mick’s job description. As well as being the team’s reserve, Mick is also Mercedes’ full-time simulator driver, so he spent the start of each European round of the championship at the Brackley base – since set-up work is virtually non-stop these days.

“Usually, on Thursday there’s a simulator planning meeting for the overnight session, which is on Friday night,” he says of his routine during the European season. “So during FP1 I’m sleeping, or trying to at least. And then, going into FP2, I’ll start getting ready…”

During the second sessions, Schumacher’s job is to make sure the simulator replicates what happened on track as accurately as possible, down to the smallest detail, from the car’s behaviour on bumps to the effect of wind direction. All this in order to extend FP2 for a few more hours and, if necessary, make changes to the set-up that Lewis Hamilton and George Russell will then have at their disposal in FP3.

Photo by: Pirelli

Schumacher has been credited with several F1 weekend turnarounds for Mercedes thanks to his sim work

Life in a day

“It’s quite advanced, very advanced,” Schumacher says of the modern Formula 1 simulator. “All the data they have on track, we can simulate it, so we have exactly the same conditions as we have on track. Then, once we’re done with a correlation, I end up having dinner or getting ready for long stints.”

These usually last until two in the morning.

“Then, depending on what time that is, I’ll be able to go and have a nap for a few hours before I fly out to the event – or fly the same night.

“I do all the debriefs during driving that summarises what we were able to find, and they’ll have a meeting where the engineers will be made aware of those. If there are more questions they’ll come to me and ask. On a good day, set-ups won’t be very different. On a bad day, they might be completely different. So it really depends on what the drivers want and need.”

“I loved the outing in the Pirelli test. It was a great drive. Just feeling the differences between the [Haas] car I previously drove and the Mercedes was huge. And just the feeling of being so good in the team it was great, too” Mick Schumacher

And while he makes no secret of the fact that he would rather be racing, Mick is also happy to point out this job does have its pleasures.

“I think Monaco counted as one of the most difficult ones,” he recalls as an example. “It was my first one as well. And I felt like we made very good progress. It was a very good one – I felt like we got good results from it. And it was the longest one, too.

“I did, I think, 130 or 140 laps. And it was just past 2am – a long, long day. Especially also because that day I didn’t sleep. I woke up at seven in the morning and watched the whole FP1 and stuff, and then was up that whole night.”

Now that that part of the championship is over, he spends entire race weekends with the team at the circuit in his role as reserve driver – because only in Europe is it possible to travel from the factory to the circuit in a matter of hours.

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Schumacher endured a gruelling European stint of the F1 season with late night sim sessions in Brackley followed by a dash to the track

I travel

“Obviously, life is a bit different,” he says when asked to compare his current job with the one he had last year. “We still have a similar amount of travel… I would even go as far as saying there’s more travelling, actually, than before.

“Obviously, European races are a bit different since I do the race support stuff. But that’s now, with the flyaways, changed back to how it was at the beginning of the year, where I’m present at the event from basically Thursday to Sunday.

“It’s mainly just being on standby, ready, waiting to jump into the car, being part of the meetings, being part of conversations that are to be held and needed. Otherwise, you have to try and learn from the team as it works, as it develops, and as it changes over the course of the year. It’s very interesting for me to just see that change, and how quickly the development parts come in, and how it’s communicated. It’s a very different perspective from how I had it last year. And in some ways, a perspective that gave me a lot of intel.”

He got a taste of the actual real-world W14, too, in June during the Pirelli test in Barcelona.

“I loved the outing in the Pirelli test,” he says. “It was a great drive. Just feeling the differences between the [Haas] car I previously drove and the Mercedes was huge. And just the feeling of being so good in the team it was great, too.”

Whether Mick will be able to put this year’s experience to good use on the track in F1 is still a big question mark, since it’s unlikely he’ll be back on the grid in 2024. But after a bumpy spell with Haas, at Mercedes he has at least had the opportunity to observe the inner workings of one of the best F1 teams – and drivers of the calibre of Hamilton and Russell.

“I think the fact that everyone is human has been the biggest lesson for me,” he says of his time at Mercedes so far. “Everybody cooks with water, and everybody does the same stuff as everybody else. So I think that for me was a very, very important one.

“Obviously, my main target is being back on the grid. That’s what I live for. Of course, I would prefer driving but still being part of it is also good. And if I can contribute, even if it’s only a little bit, to the team’s success, then I can be happy.”

Photo by: Pirelli

This year Schumacher's track outings in F1 have been limited to Pirelli tyres tests and a private test with McLaren

Up on the catwalk

With the immediate options rapidly dwindling, Mick is prepared for the journey back to the F1 grid to take longer than he might have hoped when he signed with Mercedes in the winter. The reputational damage after a couple of crash-filled seasons with Haas was too substantial – and his work at Mercedes being outside the spotlight affords him fewer opportunities to change the minds of sceptics, including those of potential employers.

So, inevitably, he has to work on a backup plan.

“Well, the plan is to keep exploring the options, but also to be realistic in some ways,” he says. “That’s what we’re working on. We still have to look forward and try and see what possibilities there are.

“I don’t think I need to close that chapter, Formula 1, anytime soon. Because you saw it in different scenarios where people came back even after more than three or four years” Mick Schumacher

“I know for a fact there’s still a lot more I can show and that I have potential in me that people [don’t see]. You know, if they look at the stats, yeah, okay, maybe it doesn’t look great. But, stats can also be changed within two or three races.

“At some point, you can only do so much. I’m not racing this year. So I can’t prove otherwise. It’s obviously a difficult position to be in, but it’s also a position which, hopefully, I’ll be able to grow through and it’ll make me stronger.”

If Toto Wolff is to be believed, Schumacher is very good at sim work. But as much as he enjoys looking at F1 from a different perspective, it’s still not Schumacher's dream job. And it looks like his schedule will be even busier next year, since he is exploring the option of a race seat in some other category, while continuing to work with Mercedes in the same capacity, thus keeping the door open for a return to F1.

Photo by: Alpine

Schumacher recently tested for the Alpine WEC squad with an eye on returning to racing in 2024

“Ideally, you want to go racing as soon as possible,” he says. “This year, for me, it was the decision that I don’t go racing, because I wanted to focus 100% on this [working with Mercedes]. But yeah, I think that, ideally, I’ll be back racing next year.

“I don’t think I need to close that chapter, Formula 1, anytime soon. Because you saw it in different scenarios where people came back even after more than three or four years.

“It’s not an easy period right now. But it’s a matter of really, keep fighting, and keep pushing and keep going for it. And that’s what I’m trying to do.”

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Will Schumacher be able to make his dream of returning to F1 a reality?