Franz Tost: Mick Schumacher needs three years to gain experience

Few team leaders have as much talent development experience as Franz Tost, as Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri was and still is the starting point for Red Bull Youth drivers to start their Formula 1 careers.

Further, their fate may turn out differently: someone is more lucky, and he goes to the “main” team, someone less – he either stays in AlphaTauri, or even leaves the championship.

In any case, Franz Tost knows how to work with young people, how to create conditions for the professional growth of riders. He is well aware of the importance of giving a young driver time to adapt, although it is clear that in Formula 1 a debutant is expected to see near-instant results.

According to Toast, this rule fully applies to Mick Schumacher, who is playing for Haas F1 for the second season. At the same time, there are serious expectations attached to the seven-time world champion’s son, and his progress is closely monitored at the Scuderia, as Mick has long been a student of the Ferrari racing academy.

“He needs three more years to play for another team,” says the Austrian. – Modern Formula 1 is extremely complex and the driver needs at least three seasons before he really learns to drive well. It took time, including George Russell or Charles Leclerc.

But for now, Schumacher’s job is to regularly beat his teammate Kevin Magnussen and try to succeed in the Haas. At the moment everything is required of him and nothing more.

Unlike Mick, Kevin Magnussen managed to score points in the first two races of the season, even though he hadn’t driven a Formula 1 car in over a year before that.In Australia, Schumacher managed to outrun his teammates on Saturday and Sunday, but he finished outside the top ten.