Mick Schumacher talks about the importance of remaining fit as he will try to drive cars of different categories in 2023 while working with Mercedes.
Having lost his F1 drive to Nico Hulkenberg at Haas, Schumacher decided not to stick with Ferrari and move to Mercedes family from 2023 onward as its reserve driver. The German outfit were in need of an experienced reserve after losing Nyck de Vries and Stoffel Vandoorne.
In Schumacher, they have a driver who knows the latest generation of cars having driven it in 2022. This will help them massively with simulator work during race weekends. For the German, he is looking to raise his fitness level by driving different cars.
“I was driving an old F3 car during the winter,” said Schumacher on a media call. ”I’m planning on doing a lot of driving, or as much driving as I can this year, in different categories, different cars. This year, I’ve decided that I wanted to be as fit as I’ve ever been. I believe that I’ve achieved so far to be fit.
”I’m planning on getting even fitter until the beginning of the season. I’m still in the loop driving wise. Additionally, I’m planning on staying in the loop. It’s definitely a privilege being part of Mercedes. More than that, it’s also a place where I always felt at home. So in terms of racing, it is maybe not the step that I wanted.
”It is another way of improving my driving and proving myself as a racing driver. I hope to be as much of a help to the team that I can. And with everything that the team has done in the past and all the experience Mercedes have, I’ll be able to use that for myself in order to grow as a driver,” summed up Schumacher.
Moving on from a driving role to a reserve role, it leaves a driver with a mindset where one has to adjust to the new life. For any race car driver, the idea is always to race and compete but if he/she doesn’t gets to do it, that puts a different kind of pressure.
Schumacher will be taking an approach where he will look at the weekend as if he driving, so that he doesn’t loses touch. For now, he is also looking to build on the 2023 experience for a drive for 2024 where he revealed that there will be opportunities.
“I will still probably take it in a very similar approach,” said Scumacher. ”I will be going into the weekend thinking as if I was going to race. I need to keep myself sharp, but in the end, it is a very different year. I’ll try and also see what I can take with it as an experience and how to learn from it. I will try to be as much of a help to the team as I can be.
”Partly because I have the experience of driving, but also because of the mentality. I know how it is to approach a weekend. I will keep the same approach. I mean there’s obviously no guarantee [about a future drive]. I’m in a comfortable position right now. I feel like I can learn, I can extract the maximum out of this year even though I’m not driving.
”I’m sure that with the results I’ve shown in junior categories but also in F1, I’m sure that there will be opportunities. Over the winter a few people have already mentioned that there’s interest,” summed up Schumacher.
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