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However ill-conceived James Vowles's comments over the Italian Grand Prix weekend about Mick Schumacher ended up looking, it's hard to escape the conclusion that Schumacher just isn't a high priority for Formula 1 teams.
His Mercedes reserve driver role has kept him clinging to the F1 dream by his fingertips, but even in the time he's held that the 25-year-old has been passed up for the Williams drive given to Franco Colapinto for the rest of 2024, and was also turned down by Alpine - for which Schumacher drives in the World Endurance Championship - for its 2025 vacancy (which instead went to Jack Doohan).
That begs two questions: are Schumacher's F1 chances over, and has he been unfairly overlooked?
SLIM PICKINGS
Schumacher is expected to remain as a Mercedes reserve next year, and should continue to race in the WEC. But his real target is an F1 race return.
There are technically two vacancies for 2025 but considering one is within the Red Bull driver ecosystem, the only seat that really remains open is at Sauber, which from the start of next year will be fully owned by Audi ahead of its works F1 entry in 2026.
The incumbent Valtteri Bottas looks favourite for that seat but, with vocal lobbying in Germany, there's always the possibility that Audi might want to go for an all-German line-up by partnering Schumacher with Nico Hulkenberg.
But right now that appears desperately unlikely and would be a puzzling decision, even though Schumacher does have a pre-existing relationship with new Audi F1 boss Mattia Binotto from his time as part of Ferrari's academy set-up.
Even if anyone but Bottas is to get that seat, it looks more likely to go to a rookie: possibly Sauber's own protege Theo Pourchaire, the 2023 Formula 2 champion, though McLaren junior and Fernando Alonso-managed Gabriel Bortoleto, currently second in the F2 standings, has moved into a strong position.
Is Schumacher's F1 career finished?
Mark Hughes
Be careful to be so definitive because there are always opportunities arising and people having to stand down through injury or, maybe like Kevin Magnussen, getting too many points on the licence; things like that.
Schumacher is still a known quantity of F1 driver who might need to be plugged in somewhere, so I wouldn't say his career is definitely over.
But I'd say his prospects of getting a full-time, permanent drive on merit are probably gone.
Mark was answering a question from The Race Members' Club on a recent episode of The Race F1 Podcast. Head to Patreon to try The Race Members' Club with our seven-day free trial.
Most likely, another season on the sideline awaits Schumacher.
He will continue to be an option for any team needing to make a driver change but having been rejected outright or overlooked by so many teams, Schumacher's hopes are fading. But given his experience, he remains in the game so can't completely give up hope.
HAS F1 BEEN UNFAIR?
Has F1 given Schumacher a fair shot? There are plenty who argue it hasn't, and not only members of his own family and fanbase.
Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko said it is "a fact" that Schumacher was treated unfairly by Guenther Steiner while he was at Haas.
There, Schumacher scored 12 points in 43 starts - though that includes a debut season in 2021 during which Haas ran with a car that was not developed and was mostly unchanged from its 2020 predecessor. In the more representative circumstances of 2022, he was comprehensively outperformed by Kevin Magnussen.
In any case, Marko clearly didn't feel it was that unfair; there was an option to bring Schumacher into the Red Bull fold for 2023, but instead the ill-fated decision to sign Nyck de Vries was made.
And there's one aspect of Schumacher that does make him unappealing to teams: his surname (and the noise that surrounds him as a result).
That has been portrayed as a positive for Schumacher, but has not been the case lately. Steiner even said in an interview with Sky Sports F1 last year that Haas found comments from the likes of his uncle, Ralf Schumacher, and parts of the German media to be counter-productive.
"They [the German media] tried to put the pressure on to keep Mick and blame the team and I don’t think that was good for Mick," said Steiner.
Even so, none of that would matter if Schumacher was reckoned to be more than just a decent F1 driver.
He is certainly that and if he was given another chance in F1 he wouldn't do a bad job and would have the chance to prove he's used his time on the sidelines to work on his weaknesses.
But it's difficult to argue he would do a great job, and that's what teams are looking for.
Vowles, amid a degree of backlash, said he'd been "foolish" to say Schumacher "isn't special", clarifying that he'd used that word in the context of multiple world champions including Ayrton Senna and Lewis Hamilton. He also confirmed he had apologised to Schumacher.
But fundamentally he is correct. Schumacher has never shown superstar potential in F1; if he had he wouldn't have been outperformed by Magnussen - himself heading for the Haas exit door this year having been outclassed by Hulkenberg - in 2022 driving a car that could score points.
In F1, performance is what matters. The bottom line is that Schumacher hasn't wowed any team he’s driven for, which is why he keeps finding himself on the list of options but never at the top of it.
Even so, he has two seasons of F1 experience as well as recent testing mileage for Mercedes, McLaren and Alpine, which means that, for now, he’s still 'current' as an F1 driver.
All the while that's the case, he's a logical candidate for drives given how small the pool of drivers with recent F1 experience is.
