Rumor: Mick Schumacher to be a Ferrari driver in 3 years

Mattia Binotto, confirmed on Tuesday that he views Haas signing Mick Schumacher as a temporary stepping stone to a future with the Ferrari ‘A’  team.

“Mick Schumacher will be one of the drivers for Haas next year, which for us is a great opportunity, showing the strength of collaboration we’ve got,” Binotto said. “Mick is part of our Ferrari Drivers Academy and the FDA program is not there to develop drivers for F1, but it’s there to develop drivers that one day may drive a Ferrari seat, a red car.

“When you move from F2 and jump into F1, the very first year cannot be a directly into a red car because that would be too much responsibility and not enough experience. So knowing that we’ve got customer teams or partners on which we may count to continue developing our drivers in F1 is an important element.”

“Jock [Clear] is a great person, a great professional who has been in Ferrari for many years, His role in 2020 was driver coach – an engineer who is supporting the drivers in order to perform in terms of driving to their best; looking at the lines, look at the way they are braking, through the corner, accelerating, managing tires… to make sure that the driver is developing well.

It’ll still be quite a while before young Mick proves whether he has what it takes to win in F1. First he has to hone his F1 skills at Haas for 2 or 3 years. With the Haas design team now setting up shop within Maranello, Schumacher can spend plenty of time at both Haas and Ferrari.

But first he must show enough brilliance at Haas to warrant the Prancing Horse ‘A’ team moving aside Carlos Sainz Jr. or Charles Leclerc.