Mick Schumacher may have walked away from Formula 1 at the end of last year to focus on the “sporting aspect of racing” but that doesn’t mean he has given up on the dream.

That, he says, “lives on” in the moments when he’s not thinking about Alpine and his World Endurance Championship programme with the French team.

Mick Schumacher: My dream is my dream

Schumacher last raced in Formula 1 in 2022, his two seasons with Haas blighted by an uncompetitive car in year one and huge crashes in year two.

Having been dropped by team principal Guenther Steiner on the eve of the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the German spent the next two years as a Mercedes reserve driver while making it clear he wanted to be back on the grid.

But despite being linked to three teams who had open seats for the F1 2025 championship; Mercedes, Alpine and Sauber, one by one Schumacher was passed over as all of the three opted for rookie drivers. Mercedes signed Kimi Antonelli, Alpine put Jack Doohan in the car and Sauber went with Gabriel Bortoleto.

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It has Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko, who has guided many drivers into Formula 1, declaring Schumacher’s Formula 1 career was over.

“I think if Schumacher doesn’t get this seat,” he told sport.de ahead of the Sauber announcement, “then Formula 1 history is over for him.

“He should then concentrate on the long-distance races, where he was very successful, and do that. If he stays in motorsport, then he has to find something that he enjoys, but where he also has a chance of winning.”

But that’s easier said than done.

“My dream is my dream,” Schumacher said as per RTL.

“When I’m in the car, I’m 100 per cent there. That means that when I’m in the WEC environment and racing, my thoughts are 100 per cent there – in the simulator, in the meeting, whatever.”

But when he steps away from his Alpine commitments, “the dream lives on in the moments when I have free time and can think about it.”

Last year the 25-year-old dovetailed his Alpine WEC commitment with his Mercedes reserve driver role and confessed it was an exhausting schedule as there were 24 race weekends in the F1 calendar and then eight WEC weekends.

“It was obviously a very tough year, we had quite a few weekends back to back, going from one race to the next,” he said.

“Even if you could say that the reserve driver doesn’t do that much – it’s still long days. I was already relatively tired at the end of the year.”

This year, he says, will be “more relaxed in that sense. I can simply take the time to drive more simulators and help Alpine here more in the development of the cars” as he focuses on the “sporting aspect of racing”.

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