Williams boss issues apology to Mick Schumacher over remarks

Red Bull Racing/Red Bull Content Pool

Williams CEO James Vowles has publicly apologized to Mick Schumacher following comments suggesting that the son of the legendary seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher was "good but not special.".

The remarks were made on Friday when Vowles explained why Williams opted for Argentine F2 driver Franco Colapinto over Schumacher, who is currently the Mercedes reserve driver, as a replacement for the recently dropped American, Logan Sargeant.

"First and foremost, I'm not here to put Mick down," Vowles clarified in an interview with F1 television. "Mick is in a world championship team that have chosen him as a reserve driver, and there's good reason behind it. It's because he's an incredibly strong candidate."

Elaborating on his initial comment, Vowles added, "The word 'special,' I used it in the context of multiple world champions like Ayrton Senna and Lewis [Hamilton] as well. Clearly, that's a foolish thing to do, because that's the comparison."

Schumacher, who was let go by Haas at the end of the 2022 season after two years with the team, has since struggled to secure a full-time seat. He has been passed over by Mercedes, Renault-owned Alpine—where he has been involved in world endurance racing—and now Williams, even when these teams had Formula 1 vacancies to fill.

Vowles emphasized that Williams' decision to favor Colapinto over Schumacher was focused on the team's strategic emphasis on utilizing talent from their own driver academy. He also mentioned that he had personally apologized to Schumacher.

"He didn't request anything, but it's important to me, because he's incredibly close to me and it just came across entirely the wrong way," Vowles said. "More than anything else, I wanted that to be abundantly clear."

As the F1 season progresses, all eyes will continue to watch the evolving careers of young drivers like Mick Schumacher and Franco Colapinto.

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