Dec.13 (GMM) Mick Schumacher’s ongoing reserve driver duties for 2024 got off to a premature start this week.
After driving the 2023 Mercedes last week at Magny-Cours for a wet-tyre Pirelli test, Schumacher then replaced George Russell for pre-Christmas visits to the staff at the team’s Brackley and Brixworth factories this week.
Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff were there, but Russell called in sick.
“The Briton (Russell) has been sick for weeks and had to drag himself through the final races of the season,” correspondent Frederik Hackbarth told Germany’s Auto Bild.
“That’s why he’s taking a break from all obligations for now.”
Schumacher, 24, spent the entire 2023 season as Mercedes’ full-time reserve driver, but he will divide his time between that role and a return to racing next year with Alpine in the world endurance championship and Le Mans.
“I’m obviously excited to be racing again with Alpine,” he said. “I’m a racer, I’ve always been a racer and I’ll be racing again next year because that’s what I love doing.
“Not racing this year was hard and I’m really happy to be back, fighting. Believe me, I’m still working hard and hopefully I’m taking the step to get back into F1.”
As for the visit to Brackley and Brixworth, he insists it wasn’t a chore.
“I can continue to build relationships with the team here,” Schumacher said. “It’s nice to spend so much time with everyone and get to know them, including people who were here when my father was.
“It is a very special team and a very special connection that we have.”
Mmmm. I wonder what is going on with George Russell?
I have been watching George very carefully since he was first given a drive in Sir Lewis Hamiltons Mercedes at a Grand Prix and all of my unhappy antennae are going frantic. For what it is worth it is my personal opinion that George is the worst done by F1 driver in the history of the sport.
Toto Wolff is more commercially orientated than he is towards sport. After all a lot of his wealth is based on the success of the Mercedes brand. Associated with that is his commitment to Lewis because Lewis has a very high and a very public profile which provides lots and lots of media coverage. All of which promotes the Mercedes name and sells Mercedes cars. They are therefor a formidable marketing team and contributed significantly to the billion dollars boost in Mercedes sales over the last 8 years.
And then we come back to the sport of F1 and the arrival of George on the Mercedes scene. With his very first drive in the Mercedes he was threatening the Mercedes Marketing Machine (MMM = Lewis and Toto) by showing that he was capable of beating the Mercedes second driver (Valterii Bottas) by a country mile so the unbeatable and extremely reliable (normally) Hamilton Mercedes suddenly has all sorts of weird problems and recalls to the pits for bad tyre choices and associated gremlins.
That fantastic drive by George made it obvious to the world that Mercedes had a driver in waiting that could not be ignored or else he would be off to some other close rival in no time flat. The MMM was left with little option but to arrange a place somewhere else on the grid for Bottas and put Russell in the other Mercedes. The decision was also a no-brainer because Sir Lewis is now getting to that age (which Alonso seems to defy by the way) where the future of Mercedes should not rest solely on the shoulders of MMM.
Ever since George has been at Mercedes he has shown that he is just a quick as Lewis and at times has even managed to beat him. I would suggest that has happened when MMM have decided to let him do so! And for the rest of the time George has been delayed in one form or another so that the magic MMM is not clouded in any way.
I think that George is suffering severely from his hamstrung situation and if I was in his position I too would cop out whenever I could to get away from the MMM and lick my extensive wounds.
The under-performing 2022 and 2023 Mercedes cars has not helped the MMM at all so I wonder why Mercedes does not call it a day and retire both senior members of the MMM and get back to enjoying F1 as a sport.