“He is a racing god, no question. But for me he is Papa.”
That line, reported by Yahoo Nachrichten from the new book “Über Michael Schumacher und die deutsche Ära in der Formel 1,” is the sentence Mick Schumacher wanted to leave on the record. In his chapter, he says, the racer is far outweighed by the father who sat down at the kitchen table.
The book is written by German journalist Alfred Weinzierl and published by Edel Sports as a 320-page hardback at €29.90. Alongside Mick, Weinzierl interviews Sebastian Vettel, Nico Rosberg, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Nick Heidfeld, Nico Hülkenberg and Ralf Schumacher, a line-up that between them accounts for twelve world championships across a 23-year run of German success in Formula 1.
Mick’s chapter also contains an admission about his own ambition that reads differently coming from the son of a seven-time champion: his driving goal, he tells Yahoo Nachrichten’s recap, was simply to be as cool as his dad, with being the best racer he could be as a parallel pursuit.
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A karting weekend in Sarno
One passage revisits a karting event in the Italian town of Sarno, where a teenage Mick had a rough qualifying and crashed out of the heats. According to the book, his father refused to coach him afterwards and left him to sit with the frustration on his own.
Mick says he was hurt and upset in the moment, but told himself he had to work harder so it would not happen again. He only learned later, from his mother Corinna, that his father had deliberately held back to see how his son would respond when someone close to him stopped making things easier. His father, Mick tells Yahoo Nachrichten, always had a reason for what he did, and it was never meant as punishment but as a lesson.
A career now running outside the F1 story
The book arrives at an in-between moment in Mick’s own career. Haas dropped him at the end of the 2022 season after two campaigns at the back of the grid, with Nico Hülkenberg brought in as his replacement. Three years as a Mercedes and McLaren reserve, and a stint with Alpine’s World Endurance Championship team, never translated into another race seat in Formula 1.
Instead, Mick moved to IndyCar for 2026 with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, running the No. 47 Honda as a nod to his father. His rookie season produced a fourth-place qualifying effort on his first oval at Phoenix, Rookie of the Year honours at the Indianapolis 500, and an eighth place at the Music City Grand Prix as his best finish.
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Weinzierl’s book, by placing Mick’s voice alongside Vettel’s, Rosberg’s and his uncle Ralf’s, puts the son back into the German-era narrative that his father defined. His own racing is now in a different series, on a different continent.
The hardback has been on sale through Edel Sports since October, with the Kindle edition available through Amazon.de.
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