Getting away from Europe is getting Mick Schumacher closer to the world.<\/p>\n
The son of a Formula One legend, Schumacher came up through the ranks of the sport before spending two years behind the wheel in arguably the world\u2019s most demanding motorsports series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you learn so much from all these different racing categories that I\u2019ve been through,\u201d Schumacher said. \u201cI\u2019ve learned a lot of that (and) it\u2019s been a tough experience for sure because it\u2019s very tiring.\u201d<\/p>\n
But leaving Formula One and moving on to other adventures \u2013 including 24 Hours at Le Mans \u2013 has re-energized Schumacher\u2019s open-wheel career.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were pretty close to that F1 deal and obviously, it didn\u2019t go our way,\u201d Schumacher said. \u201cSo then, after that, I had to decide what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now driving the No. 47 for Rahal-Letterman Dallara Honda in his first IndyCar NTT Series season, Schumacher, 27, is making first trip to Southern California this week for the 51st annual Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.<\/p>\n
Sight-seeing in SoCal<\/p>\n
Arriving into and getting a ride out of LAX on Tuesday \u201cwas quite an experience\u201d Schumacher said, but his team turned it into a trip to see a short list of memorized spots.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally, I just want to drive around and try to be a tourist in the time we have free,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to go see the Hollywood sign and see some stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having once traveled to San Francisco but never Los Angeles, Schumacher had his mind on a night in Santa Monica but remained anxious to get onto the famed Long Beach circuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been to L.A. so yeah, it\u2019s a good time to come in and see it for the first time,\u201d Schumacher said. \u201cI\u2019m very, very excited about the race. It\u2019s a great venue and a great racetrack from what it looks like. I haven\u2019t driven it yet so it\u2019ll be important to get going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Practice for Sunday\u2019s 51st running of the Grand Prix of Long Beach begins at 3 p.m. Friday.<\/p>\n
Free from Formula One<\/p>\n
Born into the most famous Formula One family, Schumacher began karting in 2008 under assumed names to detract from public attention.<\/p>\n
He went from Formula 4 to Formula 3 to Formula 2 before finally arriving in Formula One in 2021 with Haas Ferrari but never finishing higher than sixth at the 2022 Austrian Grand Prix. He stayed on at Ferrari in a reserve driver role through 2024 when he signed a deal with Alpine Hypercar to race in the FIA World Endurance Championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI come from a very different background so maybe the way I do things is very different,\u201d Schumacher said. \u201cBut working with the people outside of F1 has been great and very helpful in adapting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schumacher rediscovered his competitive edge for the Alpine Endurance Team and had eight top-10 finishes in two seasons, leading the team two third-place results and 16th overall for the 2025 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe transition from F1 has been softer and a bit warmer than getting thrown into the cold war,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lessons from Le Mans<\/p>\n
Working with the Alpine team also meant yearly trips to Northwest France for 24 Hours of Le Mans.<\/p>\n
One of the world\u2019s most famous races, Schumacher said he gained invaluable lessons from racing the historic 8.5-mile track.<\/p>\n
\u201cI take great memories from that place and I learned a lot of different skills that I feel like are just helpful to me across my career in the future,\u201d Schumacher said.<\/p>\n
The Alpine Endurance Team won 24 Hours at Le Mans in 2018 and 2019, with 20 top-10 finishes in 26 race starts since 2009.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I got into a position, mentally, where I was just so embedded into what I was doing that it became like a rhythm,\u201d Schumacher said. \u201cI was pushing very hard because we were having to catch up a little but so I was, it fully felt like I was part of the car.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Alpine team placed 10th overall last year, and Schumacher drove the anchor leg.<\/p>\n
\u201cI drove for 4 fours and it felt like no time had passed and it was a great feeling,\u201d Schumacher said. \u201cIt was great seeing the sunset knowing I did everything I could to get the team into a position worth fighting for. That was pretty special.\u201d<\/p>\n
IndyCar reasons<\/p>\n
An invitation to test drive for Rahal-Letterman late last year was accepted and a contract offer was signed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndyCar was always an option in my head and when I got the call to do the test, it showed me, yeah, this is fun,\u201d Schumacher said. \u201cThis series is a pretty tough one. Power steering is not a thing here so it\u2019s pretty physical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tough results \u2013 Schumacher was 25th in St. Petersburg and 24th in Alabama two weeks ago \u2013 have given the Swiss-born driver newfound respect for IndyCar and its intricacies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a very different car,\u201d Schumacher said. \u201cYou have a lot of different tools to work through that are different to what we\u2019re used to in Europe, and especially the names are different.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still getting the hang of that, but I\u2019m excited to learn more and get out on the right foot in Long Beach on Friday,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getting away from Europe is getting Mick Schumacher closer to the world. The son of a Formula One…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,28942,133,132,14396,127],"class_list":["post-269842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-grand-prix","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-motorsports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}