Guenther Steiner makes bold Mick Schumacher prediction amid now-or-never warning

Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner fears Mick Schumacher “will probably never” regain a seat in F1 if he doesn’t take advantage of a potentially volatile driver market in 2024.

Schumacher, son of seven-time World Champion Michael, spent two seasons at Haas after winning the prestigious F2 title, but was dropped at the end of 2022 after struggling alongside team-mate Kevin Magnussen.

Guenther Steiner on Mick Schumacher’s F1 comeback hopes
The German took a year out in 2023, spending it working alongside Lewis Hamilton and George Russell as Mercedes’ reserve driver, before making a return to racing with Alpine in the World Endurance Championship this season.

The 24-year-old, who is splitting his Mercedes role with his Alpine commitments in 2024 in a unique arrangement, finished 12th on his endurance debut in Bahrain earlier this month.

Although Alpine team principal Bruno Famin claimed in February that the F1 squad have “no plan” to test Schumacher in an F1 car, the former Haas star remains hopeful of returning to the series on a permanent basis in the future.

Verstappen would certainly be the ideal candidate for Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff,” Steiner told sport.de.

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But if Mercedes cannot sign the 26-year-old, the former team boss turned commentator says if he were the “team boss at Mercedes, I wouldn’t say no to Nico Hülkenberg either.

“When you see what he did again at the weekend [in Saudi Arabia], it was very cool.”

Steiner, who knows Hulkenberg well and brought him into the Haas fold last season, added: “Nico is a good driver. He was often underestimated and he was usually in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Maybe,” he added, “he’ll be in the right place at the right time.”

Hulkenberg’s Haas contract expires at the end of this season with the German admitting to Auto Motor und Sport earlier this year that he’d jump at the opportunity to race for Mercedes.

“It keeps shifting,” he said of F1’s silly season. “It will be some interesting months. An interesting cockpit is opening