Mick Schumacher ‘urgently’ needs to score some points

Former F1 driver Christian Danner says Mick Schumacher urgently needs a strong result, believing his spate of crashes to be a fireable offence.

The 64-year-old German former racing driver raced with Rial, Zakspeed, Osella, and Arrows during his career, and said that crashes such as Schumacher’s in Monaco would have resulted in him being “fired immediately”.

“We would have been gone,” Danner told Marc Surer on the Sport1 show. Surer was Danner’s Arrows team-mate under team boss Jackie Oliver in 1986.

While Kevin Magnussen has scored 15 points after three points finishes from the first four races following his return to F1, Schumacher is yet to score his first F1 point.

Schumacher has had two heavy crashes recently, withdrawing from the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after a qualifying crash, as well as splitting his Haas in half during the Monaco Grand Prix. He also missed out on potential points when he collided with Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel in Miami.

It’s resulted in team boss Guenther Steiner issuing a warning to Schumacher, urging him to pull his socks up.

“The announcement to him was high time. The boss, to whom the driver delivers two total write-offs, will be allowed to say ‘My dear fellow, now stop crashing’. And he crashed all the time,” Danner said.

Danner called for harmony between Haas and Schumacher, and said calm heads are required to ensure Schumacher doesn’t crumble under the pressure.

“Mick is a good driver,” he said of the 2020 Formula 2 Champion.

“But, if you regularly wreck your car and are a second slower than your teammate, you’re not sexy for the teams.

“It has to be calm on all sides. Also with those on Mick’s side who repeatedly criticise Haas and Steiner publicly.”

Surer agreed with Danner’s assessment, believing that Schumacher is getting increasingly flustered by the lack of points, the crashes, and the criticism. But Surer pointed out that Steiner’s honest approach is to Schumacher’s benefit, as he knows exactly where he stands with his boss.

“Guenther Steiner is honest,” Surer said.

“I like Guenther Steiner because he’s honest. When he says something, he means it. Mick urgently needs a sense of achievement. He needs a weekend where he’s just lucky and it works. He definitely needs points.”