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Haas F1 team principal Guenther Steiner explained that the reason the team went for Nico Hulkenberg over Mick Schumacher was because they wanted someone to carry the team forward. Delving deeper into the decision of hiring Hulkenberg over Mick Schumacher on the F1 Show, Steiner said:
"We are the youngest team and the last two years we lost a little bit of our momentum, you know, when the pandemic came and so on. So it’s how can we bring the team back where we want to be like in ’18, and maybe ’19, which was better than the last two years. You know Mick did a good job but we need to carry him and we need somebody to carry us a little bit."
He added:
"We waited a long time because it wasn’t clear that decision and we wanted to make sure that next year we don’t regret that we make a quick decision and the market our way. Nobody really picked it up so we wait a little bit longer than you do normally. But I think this is the moment, the best we can do for the team to move up again to where we really want to be."
Experience worked against young Mick Schumacher
Speaking about the signing of Nico Hulkenberg, the Haas boss talked about how the 35-year-old German has years of experience working with the midfield teams, and how that played a huge role in picking him over Mick Schumacher. Guenther Steiner said:
"I think that the experience of multi-years in Formula 1 that never have been with another team than us. So by Nico being seen [as a driver with] three or four teams before, experience [is key] and experience takes time to make, and in the moment, we don’t have time, because we want to move forward."
He added:
"We don’t want to be where we are. Now, we want to get better. It is not Mick’s fault that we are where we are and we only have ourselves to blame, but we need to come up again and there is a shorter way by taking a guy with a lot of experience, which has done this in multiple teams."
Mick Schumacher is in all likelihood moving to the Mercedes driver academy. It's hard to comment on what his future is going to be, but for the 2023 F1 season, it does appear that the Schumacher name will not be present on the Formula 1 grid.
