Mick Schumacher replaced by Nico Hulkenberg at Haas F1 for 2023 season

Associated PressNov 17, 2022, 6:00 AM EST
Mick Schumacher Haas Hulkenberg
BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images
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Mick Schumacher, son of seven-time Formula One champion Michael Schumacher, is out at Haas, and Nico Hulkenberg will return to the grid full time next season in his place.

“I would like to thank Mick Schumacher for his contribution to the team over the past couple of years,” Haas team principal Gunther Steiner said in a statement. “Mick’s pedigree in the junior categories was well known and he has continued to grow and develop as a driver in his time with Haas F1 Team. While choosing to go in separate directions for the future the entire team wishes Mick well for the next steps in his career path and beyond.”

Minutes after the announcement was made, Schumacher tweeted that he was disappointed with the decision but hoped to soon return to Formula 1.

“It was at times bumpy but I steadily improved, learned a lot and now know for sure that I deserve a place in Formula One,” Schumacher said. “The subject is anything but closed for me. Setbacks only make you stronger.”

The announcement regarding the last undecided seat on F1’s 2023 grid was hardly a surprise as Gene Haas told The Associated Press in October that Schumacher needed to score points in the final four races of the season to keep his job.

“Mick’s future is going to be decided by Mick. If he wants to stay with us, he’s got to show us that he can score some more points. That’s what we are waiting for,” Haas told The AP. “I think Mick has got a lot of potential, but you know he costs a fortune and he’s wrecked a lot of cars that have cost us a lot of money that we just don’t have.

“Now, if you bring us some points, and you are (Max) Verstappen and you wreck cars, we’ll deal with it. But when you are in the back and you wreck cars, that’s very difficult.”

In the three races since Haas made clear the job requirements, the 23-year-old German has failed to score any points with a best finish of 13th last week in Brazil. Schumacher missed the second race of the season after a brief hospitalization following a crash in Saudi Arabia, and with 12 points scored this season ranks 17th of the 20 full-time drivers.

In two seasons with Haas, where Schumacher was placed by the Ferrari Driver Academy, Schumacher has yet to live up to the hype set by his father’s legacy. He and fellow rookie Nikita Mazepin combined for the worst team on the F1 grid last season, and he’s been outrun all year by Kevin Magnussen, who was brought back to the team when Mazepin was fired following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Haas, the only American-owned team on the F1 grid, has a technical alliance with Ferrari, and Schumacher’s contract with the Driver Academy is up after Sunday’s season finale at Abu Dhabi – removing any obligation on Haas to keep Schumacher in the car.

Schumacher could land in a reserve role with Mercedes – a job Australian Daniel Ricciardo is also chasing – and Esteban Ocon had pushed for Schumacher to get the open Alpine seat before it went to Pierre Gasly.

Mercedes head Toto Wolff admitted the team has interest in the young German after last week’s race.

“I don’t know what the status is with Mick and Haas,” Wolff said after the Brazilian Grand Prix. “But I make no secret of the fact that the Schumacher family belongs with us and that we value Mick very highly.”

Four-time F1 champion Sebastian Vettel is retiring after Sunday’s race and Schumacher is out, which put F1 in jeopardy of not having a German driver on the grid next season. But Haas replaced one German with another in Hulkenberg, a veteran of 181 F1 starts.

Hulkenberg last raced a full season in 2019 with Renault, then was a substitute driver for two races in 2020 and another two races this year. He was a fill-in this year for Vettel, who missed the first two races of the season with COVID-19, and Hulkenberg finished 12th in Saudi Arabia.

Hulkenberg, who is 35, scored a pole in his 2010 rookie season but has never had a podium finish in F1.

“I’m very happy to move into a fulltime race seat with Haas F1 Team in 2023,” Hulkenberg said in a team statement. “I feel like I never really left Formula 1. I’m excited to have the opportunity to do what I love the most again and want to thank Gene Haas and Gunther Steiner for their trust. “

Heart of Racing program aims to elevate new generation of women to star in sports cars

By Mar 29, 2023, 12:00 PM EDT
women sports cars
Mike Levitt/LAT Images/Heart of Racing
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(Editor’s note: This story on the Heart of Racing sports cars shootout for women is one in an occasional Motorsports Talk series focusing on women in racing during March, which is Women’s History Month.)

Heart of Racing driver and team manager Ian James says his daughter, Gabby, isn’t so interested in auto racing. But she is interested (as a New York-based journalist) in writing about the sport’s efforts and growth in gender equality

It’s a topic that also was brought up by James’ wife, Kim.

“They’re always saying, ‘Hey, you manage all these guys, and you help them, so why not a woman?’ ” Ian James told NBC Sports. “And I feel like there are a lot of women that haven’t had a fair crack at it in sports car racing.

“Our whole DNA at Heart of Racing is we give people opportunities in all types of situations where there’s been crew personnel or drivers. And I felt like we hadn’t really addressed the female driver situation. I felt like there was a void to give somebody a chance to really prove themselves.”

During the offseason, the team took a major step toward remedying that.

Hannah Grisham at the Heart of Racing shootout (Mike Levitt/LAT)

Heart of Racing held its first female driver shootout last November at the APEX Motor Club in Phoenix, Arizona, to select two women who will co-drive an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 in the SRO SprintX Championship.

The season will begin this weekend at Sonoma Raceway with Hannah Grisham and Rianna O’Meara-Hunt behind the wheel. The team also picked a third driver, 17-year-old Annie Rhule, for a 2023 testing program.

The Phoenix audition included 10 finalists who were selected from 130 applicants to the program, which has been fully underwritten by Heart of Racing’s sponsors.

“We didn’t want it to be someone who just comes from a socio-economic background that could afford to do it on their own course,” James said. “We can pick on pure talent. We’re committed to three years to do this and see if we can find the right person. I’m very hopeful.”

So is Grisham, a Southern California native who has been racing since she was 6 in go-karts and since has won championships in Mazda and Miata ladder series. She has several victories in the World Racing League GP2 (an amateur sports car endurance series). The last two years, Grisham has worked as a test driver for the Pirelli tire company (she lives near Pirelli’s U.S. headquarters in Rome, Georgia, and tests about 30 times a year).

Starting with the Sonoma during SprintX event weekends (which feature races Saturday and Sunday), she will split the Heart of Racing car with O’Meara-Hunt (a New Zealand native she got to know at the shootout).

“It’s huge; the biggest opportunity I’ve had in this sport,” Grisham, 23, told NBC Sports. “Now it’s up to me to perform how I know I can. But I’m super lucky to be with such an amazing team and have a good teammate. The Heart of Racing has a family vibe and energy to it that’s really amazing. It’s super exciting. It’s hard to put into words.”

Grisham is hopeful that a strong performance eventually could lead to a full-time ride with Heart of Racing. The team has full-time entries in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and won the GTD category of the 2023 Rolex 24 at Daytona with the No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 piloted by James, Darren Turner, Roman DeAngelis and Marco Sorensen.

James said “there’s no guarantee” of placement in an IMSA entry for Grisham and O’Meara-Hunt, but “if they prove themselves, we’ll continue to help them throughout their career and our team. The GT3 program is an obvious home for that. If they get the opportunity and don’t quite make it, we’ll be looking for the next two. The next three years, we’ll cycle through drivers until we find the right one.”

Grisham described the two-day shootout as a friendly but intense environment. After a day of getting acclimated to their cars, drivers qualified on new tires the second day and then did two 25-minute stints to simulate a race.

Hannah Grisham reviews data with Heart of Racing sports car driver Gray Newell during the team’s shootout last November (Mike Levitt/LAT).

“Everyone was super nice,” she said. “Once everyone gets in the car, it’s a different level. A different switch gets turned on. Everyone was super nice; everyone was quick. I feel we had an adequate amount of seat time, which is definitely helpful.

“It’s always cool to meet more women in the sport because there’s not too many of us, even though there’s more and more. It’s always cool to meet really talented women, especially there were so many from all over the world.”

IMSA has celebrated female champions and race winners, notably Katherine Legge (who is running GTD full time this season with Sheena Monk for Gradient Racing). The field at Sebring and Daytona also included the Iron Dames Lamborghini (a female-dominated team).

The Heart of Racing’s female driver shootout drew interested candidates from around the world (Mike Levitt/LAT).

James believes “a breakout female driver will be competing with the best of them” in the next five years as gender barriers slowly recede in motorsports.

“It’s been a male-dominated sport,” James said. “It’s still a very minute number of women drivers compared to the guys. I’m sure back in the day there were physical hurdles about it that were judged. But now the cars are not very physical to drive, and it’s more about technique and mental strength and stuff like that, and there’s no reason a girl shouldn’t do just as well as a guy. What we’re just trying to achieve is that there isn’t an obvious barrier to saying ‘Hey, I can’t hire a guy or a girl.’ We just want to put girls in front of people and our own program that are legitimate choices going forward for people.”

“There’s been some really good female drivers, but a lot of them just haven’t been able to sustain it, and a lot of that comes from sponsorship. I think (with the shootout), there’s no pressure of raising money and worrying about crash damage. We’ve taken care of all that so they can really focus on the job at hand.”

Funding always has been a hurdle for Grisham, who caught the racing bug from her father, Tom, an off-road driver who raced the Baja 1000 several times.

“I don’t come from a lot of money by any means,” she said. “So since a young age, I’ve always had to find sponsorships and get people to help me, whether it was buying tires, paying for entry fees, paying for the shipment of a car to an actual race. Literally knocking on the doors of people or businesses in my town.

“So yeah, it’s definitely something I’ve always struggled with and held me back because the sport revolves so much around money. So again to get this opportunity is insane.”

Rianna O’Meara-Hunt was one of two women selected by the Heart of Racing to drive in the SRO SprintX Championship this year (Mike Levitt/LAT).

Grisham credits racing pioneer Lyn St. James (an Indy 500 veteran and sports car champion) as a role model who has helped propel her career. She was hooked by the sights, smells and sounds of racing but also its competitive fire.

“There’s a zone you get in, that subconscious state of mind when you’re driving. It’s like addictive almost. I love it. Also I’m just a very competitive person as I think most race car drivers are.

“For sure I want to stay with the Heart of Racing. Obviously, I’m still getting to know everyone, but it’s a super family vibe. That’s how I grew up in the sport with just my dad and I wrenching on the cars. That’s what I love about this sport is all the amazing people you meet. And I think this is one of the most promising teams in this country. For sure, I want to learn as much as I can from them and hopefully continue. I feel so lucky and grateful to be one of those chosen.”