F1 News
F1 team boss: 'Germany needs heroes like Michael Schumacher'
- GPblog.com
It has been known for some time that Formula 1 is not doing well in Germany. Interest among German fans is waning, they crave home-grown world champions but these seem to be a thing of the past. Franz Tost, team boss of AlphaTauri, provides his take on the situation at F1-Insider.
Tost sees a trend in the German sports world. Fan interest is not merely dropping in Formula 1, he says this also seems to be the case with football. The Austrian calls Germany "spoilt".
"I am convinced that the little interest in the last World Cup also has to do with the poor results of the national team. If they had reached the final, half of Germany would have followed the games in Qatar. One thing is certain: People need heroes, and they need heroes made of flesh and blood, not metal," Tost said.
The AlphaTauri team boss considers Michael Schumacher one such hero. He explains that people wanted to see Schumacher succeed as a person and not that all success is due to the engine or car. When something like that succeeds, as it did with Schumacher, you see how popular the sport suddenly becomes in Germany.
Mick Schumacher and Nico Hulkenberg
Although Mercedes achieved great successes with Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton in recent years as a German team, this did not spark the magic that German fans want to feel. Sebastian Vettel, who became four-time world champion between 2010 and 2013, left the sport after the 2022 season. Mick Schumacher recently lost his seat on the grid.
"[Mick Schumacher] could have been the new hero, but unfortunately he does not have a seat in F1 for the time being. That's something I regret," Tost says. The only German driver we will see next season is Nico Hulkenberg, but Tost thinks Mick in particular could rekindle the interest of German fans - provided he manages to get a seat on the grid again.
The young driver has been hired as a reserve driver at Mercedes and so he certainly is not inactive in the world of F1. In any case, the fact that Hulkenberg is currently the only German driver with a spot on the grid is not enough for a revival, according to Tost.