One could be forgiven for thinking halfway through the 2018 FIA Formula 3 Championship season that the son of seven-time F1 World Champion Michael Schumacher was nothing more than ordinary. Having competed in the series in 2017 finishing 12th overall and gaining only one podium, Mick Schumacher was only 10th overall and had only three podiums halfway through the 2018 season including his first F3 win.
Something has clicked since then and at the completion of the season he has now clinched the FIA Formula 3 European Championship title. His record for the season now shows seven pole positions and seven race wins including standing on the podium 14/30 races.
His PREMA Theodore Racing team think he is pretty special as well and note that ‘…the 19-year-old German has now joined a notable roster of winning PREMA Theodore Racing drivers who then proceeded to make their way to the pinnacle of motor racing.’
Schumacher himself has expressed the thrill of being a champion, “An unreal feeling, I am so happy about that championship! At the same time I am so very grateful for being able to experience this, to live my dream and to have such a strong team behind and around me – that title is because of and for them!
“Everybody at Prema has worked extremely hard to celebrate that title now, we had a very cool year together. I have to admit that the fact that I am Champion has not yet arrived at my mind totally, but I am sure I will enjoy it fully.”
His motorsport career started in 2008 racing under the pseudonym ‘Mick Betsch’. Betsch being his mother’s maiden name. His mother, Corinna Schumacher was a Western riding European champion.
Through to 2014 he raced in various karting categories throughout Europe including finishing third in the 2013 German Junior Kart Championship, and the CIK-FIA Super Cup KF juniors.
In the 2014 season, now racing under the name Mick Junior, he finished second in the German Junior Kart Championship as well as in the European and World Championships.
It was in 2015 that he joined the Van Amersfoort Racing and competed and finished tenth overall in the German ADAC Formula 4, this time using the Schumacher name.
He repeated another year in the category in 2016 as well as the Italian Formula 4 Championship, but this time with the Prema Powerteam. He finished runner-up in both series.
For 2019 it is expected that he will move into Formula 2.
While the second half of the 2018 Formula 3 Eero season has revealed his winning qualities and potential to eventually enter Formula One, there are still many hurdles to overcome. However, given his families successful sporting heritage, he will be one to watch.
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