TOTO WOLFF ISSUES RESPONSE TO JAMES VOWLES AFTER NOT ‘SPECIAL’ MICK SCHUMACHER ASSESSMENT

James Vowles’ matter-of-fact verdict on Mick Schumacher’s skills drew Toto Wolff’s attention over the Italian GP weekend.

Williams opted for an internal promotion to replace Logan Sargeant, with Franco Colapinto being given the nod to take over the American’s seat for the remainder of the F1 2024 season.

Toto Wolff: James Vowles will have ‘chosen his words’

With Liam Lawson and Mick Schumacher having been the leading candidates to replace Sargeant as Williams went looking for options following Sargeant’s Zandvoort crash, Colapinto’s appointment was a bolt from the blue given the knowledge and experience Lawson and Schumacher already have.

With Lawson impressing as a substitute for AlphaTauri this year, Schumacher was signed as Mercedes reserve driver last year following the end of his tenure as a race driver for the Haas squad before then-team boss Guenther Steiner opted against continuing with the German.

Explaining why Williams had opted against signing either Lawson or Schumacher, team boss James Vowles revealed Lawson’s contractual situation with Red Bull worked against him, while Schumacher’s skills came in for highlighting.

“Mick has improved a lot from where he was in Haas, there was no doubt about it, he’s a competent driver that I know he had his time,” Vowles offered.

“But he has done incredible work with Alpine, with Mercedes, and with McLaren in the meantime. And all advocates, if you speak to them, will tell you where he’s adapted and where he’s changed.

“So it becomes a decision, do we invest in the future, or do we invest in someone else as a result of it? I think both would fall into the category of not special. I think we have to be straightforward about this. Mick isn’t special, he would have just been good.”

Such bluntness is rare in F1, with Vowles comments put to Mercedes’ team boss Toto Wolff about his reserve driver. Vowles and Wolff are close friends, following Vowles’ long tenure as head of strategy for Mercedes before his Williams switch.

But how were Vowles’ comments viewed by Schumacher’s current employer?

“I know James such a long time, and he’s a bright mind and he finds his feet in the team principal’s role,” Wolff told media, including PlanetF1.com, at Monza.

“I think he will have chosen his words.

“It is just… Mick is someone who has won pretty much everything – F4, F2, F2, and he’s, I guess, been crushed in the Haas environment at that stage, and we have not seen it.

“But every team needs to take its own decisions, for the best interest of the team, and then also to decide how it wants to talk about drivers in the media.

“Everybody needs to do this in a way that they think is good.”

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The decision to not run Schumacher was met with disbelief by his uncle, former F1 race winner turned broadcaster Ralf Schumacher.

“You can perhaps respect this decision because Colapinto is a driver from Williams’ junior programme,” the German said.

“But, from a performance point of view, I think it’s absurd and doesn’t make sense,” Ralf is quoted by Sky Deutschland as having told the German Press Agency.

“I think the risk for the racing team and the driver is much, much higher than if they had brought in someone with experience like Mick.”

Given how the young Schumacher has struggled to find a way back onto the F1 grid, given his ties to both Mercedes and Alpine even before the Williams possibility, his uncle believes the former Haas driver is paying the price for his struggles to compare favourably alongside Kevin Magnussen.

“You have to be fair enough to admit that it simply took Mick too long in his second season at Haas to find his feet and get to grips with his team-mate,” Schumacher said.

“Formula 1 is not forgiving.”

2024-08-30T17:15:42Z dg43tfdfdgfd