Marko questions Sauber's imminent choice of Bottas for 2025

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Helmut Marko believes Sauber should select Mick Schumacher for 2025
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Helmut Marko has questioned Sauber and their potential decision to sign Valtteri Bottas to their second seat for the 2025 season. The Austrian advisor believes that the team, who will become Audi in 2026, should have gone with Mick Schumacher instead of the Finn, but now believes that the German's career in Formula 1 is all but over.

After racing in Formula 3 and Formula 2, Schumacher got a chance at Haas F1 in 2021. His performances were much better than that of teammate Nikita Mazepin in his first season, even though he did not register a single point in that season. A year later, however, the son of Michael Schumacher had a much tougher time alongside teammate Kevin Magnussen, and he left the American team at the end of the season, with a couple of heavy crashes also leading to that decision.

Since then, Schumacher has been on the sidelines in the premier class of motorsport, although there are still hopes for a comeback. However, the current Mercedes reserve driver is seeing his chances getting smaller and smaller as time goes on. At Alpine, he competed for a seat with Jack Doohan, but he lost that battle to the Australian. Now, only Sauber still has a seat to give away, but reportedly, they already have an agreement with Bottas.

Why no Schumacher?

However, Marko believes that Schumacher is a much more suitable candidate for the 2025 Sauber seat: "I think the Audi car [still Sauber in '25, ed.] will definitely not be a winning car next year. That means there would have been no pressure for both Audi and the driver. If the performance is not good, you can always change it for 2026."

The Red Bull advisor carried on, saying that the choice of former Mercedes driver Bottas is "even more incomprehensible". If Marko had been in charge at Sauber, he said he would have signed Schumacher: "I think if Schumacher does not get this seat, the Formula 1 story is over for him. Then he should start concentrating on endurance racing, where he has been very successful, and keep doing that."

This article was created in collaboration with Corwin Kunst