Is the clock ticking on Mick Schumacher's F1 future?

Hailed as Haas' star driver last season, Mick Schumacher's fortunes - and his future - have taken a very downward turn so far this F1 campaign.

One of only two drivers yet to score a point but without a doubt in the better of the two point-less cars, it raises questions about whether the German will still be on the grid come 2023.
While there is still time for him to secure a third season at Haas, he likely has eight races and counting.

A top-ten that nobody wants

Last season Michael Schumacher's son stepped up into Formula 1 and, in the midst of a world gone mad, it was a feel-good story.

There was no doubt that he deserved his place on the grid having won the 2020 Formula 2 Championship to go with his 2018 Formula 3 European Championship.

Both championships took him two years to win but given that he was joining back-of-the-grid Haas in Formula 1, no one expected a repeat performance. There were never going to be any title celebrations in his second season.

Never mind titles, though, Schumacher has yet to even score a point.

Last time out in Miami he broke into the top-ten for one of F1's most unwanted records, the most race starts without scoring a single point.

Contesting his 26th race and crashing while in a points-scoring position - 70-30 on Schumacher's shoulders, he is now tied with Ricardo Rosset on that list.
Small comfort can be drawn from the fact that he still has a long way to go to equal Luca Badoer's record of 50, but will he even be in F1 for another 24 races to see if he does?
Maybe not if he continues climbing that ladder.

K-Mag's arrival upped the ante

Having partnered the abrasive Nikita Mazepin last season, Schumacher was always going to be Haas' golden boy. That he had better pace to go with his father's work ethic and is just an all-round likeable chap helped his cause.
But then Haas changed drivers, Mazepin out and Kevin Magnussen returning to the fold to bag a P5 in his first grand prix in 14 months.
While Magnussen has added two P9s to his tally, Schumacher has yet to get off the mark, and worse yet, one could say that he has only himself to blame for missing out on a top-ten showing in Miami when he crashed into Sebastian Vettel.

It was a race where even if he stayed behind Vettel he would have scored a point but instead the moment seemed to get to him and, having dropped a position to the Aston Martin, he lost his head and made an ill-judged attempted pass that saw the two collide.

His team boss Guenther Steiner was irate, saying Haas weren't leaving Miami with nothing, they were leaving with "broken parts".

While his team-mate is showing himself to not only have speed but also a solid head on his shoulders, Miami has been seen as a sign that Schumacher is feeling the pressure of going up against a faster team-mate.

It was yet another mistake on his growing list for 2022 that includes crashing in qualifying in Jeddah and two incidents in the opening laps at Imola.
At a time when accidents eat into the team's budget cap, Schumacher isn't even levelling the score by bringing in points.

Guenther Steiner's warning

Steiner has warned him that he needs to start bagging points, with the Italian saying that for a driver who usually makes a leap forward in his second season, Schumacher did not "made a big step in the winter".
Adding that his driver needs to take his chances to score points "sooner rather than later because we want him to score points too," Steiner continued to Speedweek: "I always tell him that the air gets thinner higher up, that it gets harder the further you go in the field. It's not easy to score points, because there are many good drivers and teams in Formula 1. Of course, we still hope that it will happen soon."
Schumacher does still have a bit of time on his side as Haas generally only begin looking at their line up after the summer break, and there are eight races to go before F1 takes a breather.

His task is simple: score points and all the questions and concerns will fade into the background.

The feel good story will continue and Schumacher can reignite his dream of one day racing for Ferrari. But even that has become a distant one with the Scuderia confirming an unchanged line-up of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz through to the end of 2024.
But one day, maybe one day... first he has to hold onto his Haas race seat.

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