{"id":146391,"date":"2025-11-21T12:38:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T12:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/146391\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T12:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T12:38:09","slug":"indycar-news-mick-schumacher-exits-alpine-as-indycar-move-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/146391\/","title":{"rendered":"IndyCar news: Mick Schumacher exits Alpine as IndyCar move looms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/XPB_1306686_HiRes.jpg\" alt=\"Schumacher exits Alpine as IndyCar move looms\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMick Schumacher has announced he has left Aline in the WEC. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n<p>The 26-year-old, son of seven-time F1 champion Michael Schumacher, joined Alpine ahead of the 2024 season, racing in the hypercar class alongside teammates including Nicolas Lapierre, Matthieu Vaxiviere, Jules Gounon and Frederic Makowiecki.<\/p>\n<p>Over two seasons, he secured three podiums \u2014 Fuji in 2024, and Imola and Spa in 2025 \u2014 showing his single-seater speed translated effectively to prototypes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m very grateful for these past two years with Alpine Endurance Team. I\u2019ve learnt so much on and off track, and I\u2019m thankful to everyone who\u2019s been a part of it. I wish them the very best for the future,\u201d Schumacher wrote on Instagram, hinting at his 2026 plans.<\/p>\n<p>Alpine responded: \u201cThank you, Mick! It\u2019s been a pleasure having you with us and working side by side for the past two years. Wishing you all the best for what\u2019s next!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Schumacher\u2019s departure is driven by a desire to return to single-seaters, a passion that persisted during his time in endurance racing.<\/p>\n<p>Following an October test with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing at Indianapolis, he explained the appeal of IndyCar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIndyCar comes the closest to what I can still race,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m still young, so I do want to race as much as I can, and I think the people here really live motorsports.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI also like the mentality of the driver being the main part of the team and driving the team forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added that finding the right environment is key to enjoying racing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to enjoy racing, and to do that I want to find where I feel most at home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not saying Europe or WEC or any of those other championships aren\u2019t that, but I feel maybe racing [single-seaters] is always what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After losing his Haas seat at the end of 2022, Schumacher spent time as a Mercedes F1 reserve and explored endurance options, including seats with Cadillac and McLaren\u2019s Hypercar programme, but passed on them.<\/p>\n<p>With a seat now available at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, all signs point to him moving into IndyCar in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t go back to Formula 2 because I won a championship,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIndyCar might be a good option. My target for the past couple of years has been to go back to Formula 1, but that option hasn\u2019t opened up this year or the years before.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt some point I want to race again in single-seaters, and therefore this option is a good one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>  <a data-bid=\"1\" data-no-instant=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/b\/289522\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none; vertical-align: middle;\" alt=\"\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763702715_801_289522.png\"\/><br \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mick Schumacher has announced he has left Aline in the WEC. Image: XPB Images The 26-year-old, son of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25629,60580,111,139,69,98252,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-146391","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-alpine","9":"tag-mick-schumacher","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-rahal-letterman","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}