Revealed: Mick Schumacher duel role for Cadillac F1 – The son of Formula One legend Michael Schumacher, has been desperately trying to make a comeback to the sport. His two years with the Haas F1 team were unremarkable, yet Mick has 43 F1 starts to his name and with the financial backing he enjoys, he has been linked recently with the new Cadillac team.
Cadillac have played their cards close to their chest in terms of their 2026 driver lineup and as TJ13 reported last month Mario Andretti, a non-executive director of the organisation, admits the best options are already taken. “The choice is somewhat limited,” he said
“Let’s face it, a lot of the great talents are already under contract. Fortunately still there are a few out there — three or four; I’ll say maybe three — that certainly deserve consideration, and all of this is being looked upon very seriously. There are some conversations going on somewhere and in some other places. That’s as much as I can tell you to be fair to everyone,” revealed the 1978 F1 champion.
Vettel backs Schumacher for Cadillac
What is almost certainly true, is the Cadillac team will recruit one experienced driver who has been in recent competition. The choice for Cadillac is simple, Valtteri Bottas with his ten Grand Prix victories, or the somewhat vindicated Sergio Perez who has six F1 wins on Sunday under his belt.
It could be in the end Cadillac sign both of these drivers, although there’s been talk of recruiting an American born driver, with Indycar’s Colton Herta at the top of the list. Now it appears the door is also open for Mick Schumacher who has been competing in the World Endurance Championships for Alpine.
Sebastian Vettel recently praised Mick for his strong performances for the Alpine team, suggesting that F1 team’s should take notice. The quadruple F1 champion old Sky Germany he sees in Mick “a man who has matured,” going on to call on Cadillac to sign him up.
Whilst Mick’s longer term hopes are to return to Formula One, it appears a duel role for the Cadillac racing organisation may now be on offer. He is being tipped to replace Jenson Button at the highly rated Cadillac Jota WEC team, whilst also delivering a reserve driver role for their F1 team. This is a win for Cadillac recruiting an endurance racing driver on the up, together with one who has driven in F1 and held a similar position for two years at Mercedes.
Mick to replace Jenson Button
Its also a win for Mick, joining a top WEC team in Jota who claimed pole position at this years 24 hours of Le Mans. They also claimed victory a the most recent round of the championship in the Sao Paulo 6 hours event.
Schumacher was nigh on being vilified by his ex-F1 team boss Guenther Steiner, whose reflections on his time in charge of the German driver were not particularly rosey. In his book entitled Surviving to Drive, Steiner reveals the day he didn’t make an entry in his daily diary, because he was too angry with Mick Schumacher.
“And now we get on to Mick,” the then Haas boss finally wrote. “Jeezoz [sic], where do I start? The first time a driver writes off a car in a season due to human error, you have to forget about it. It’s just one of those things and at the end of the day, s**t happens sometimes,” he notes.
“The second time it happens you think ‘hang on, something’s not right here.’ The cost and the effect it has on our chances of scoring points is one thing but what about the dangers to the driver and other people? Nobody ever mentions that.
Schumacher reputation damaged by Steiner
“‘He crashed again Gunether?’” the board will say. “‘What’s the point of having a good car when you don’t score any points and keep wrecking them?’” Throughout the book the focus becomes increasingly on the deteriorating relationship between Steiner and Schumacher, including criticisms of Steiner’s approach to handling Mick coming from his uncle Ralf and the German media.
Yet Steiner’s in the moment reflections fail to recognise the pressure he was under from team owner Gene. Two seasons earlier he had slammed the performance of Haas and refused to invest a penny more of his own money. Steiner was forced to go out and find two drivers with significant financial backing. One was the son of a Russian oligarch, the other was Mick. Their pointless season together saw Haas bottom of the pile but with Russia invading Ukraine, Nikita Mazepin was dropped and Kevin Magnussen recalled.
In 2023 Mick scored his first points in F1 at the British Grand Prix. He followed up his eighth place finish at Silverstone with a sixth next time out in Austria, finishing the season with 12 points. Yet given that his far more experienced team mate, Kevin Magnussen was able to score only six times that year, the car was clearly not competitive and the year didn’t reflect Mick Schumacher’s genuine capabilities.
Schumacher praised by Hamilton
When Mick was performing the reserve driver role for Mercedes in 2023, his role back at the factory in developing the setup for the race cars for Hamilton and Russell was repeatedly praised highly. After the Spanish Grand Prix, Hamilton said: “The car felt great [on Sunday]. Friday was a real struggle with the balance, it was way out of the window. It was very hard to drive, very unpredictable. And then we did some great work overnight.
“We’ve got a great team, with Mick back in the simulator on Friday night and he did some great work, which helped us get on the right track on Saturday. I think we did pretty decent work in trying to understand the different downforce levels.”
This kind of experience for Cadillac F1 is invaluable, as a team finding its way for the first time in the sport for the first time. The upgrade from Alpine to Cadillac in endurance racing is a positive for Schumacher, and his reserve driver role for the F1 team at least for now keeps his dream of a return alive.
MORE F1 NEWS – FIA outline new ‘catch up’ rules for 2026
Formula One is heading towards one of the biggest ever car and power unit regulation overhauls in the history of the sport. Whilst the ‘final’ draught of the new powertrain rules was issued in June 2024, the FIA left itself some wriggle room on how to deal with a situation where one team/manufacturer is clearly dominant.
The memory of Mercedes nailing the new V6 turbo hybrid power unit in 2014 are fresh in most people’s minds and how they won every F1 championship between then and 2020. Of course the parent company of Mercedes High Performance Powertrains spent eye watering sums of money on the R&D for the new technology, some reporting it to be as much as $1bn.
However, Nikolas Tombazis who is the FIA official managing the day to day F1 concerns, is confident fans won’t see a repeat of the Mercedes dominance for a number of reasons. Speaking to motorsport.com he now asserts: “I don’t think that we are going to have a situation where a single manufacturer has such a huge advantage as was the case in 2014.”… READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
