Mick Schumacher was in advanced Cadillac F1 talks

Mick Schumacher has made no secret of his desire to make a Formula 1 return following his two-year tenure with Haas, and the new Cadillac team appeared to be a major opportunity for the German.

Cadillac boss Graeme Lowdon confirmed in July that the American outfit had been in talks with Schumacher for a potential 2026 contract, before signing Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas for its race seats, along with Colton Herta in a test role.

With no clear path back to F1, Schumacher moved on from his Alpine World Endurance Championship stint to sign for IndyCar’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing for 2026.

The F3 and F2 champion has now explained how advanced the conversations with Cadillac had been and said it was “tough” for him in the end, although he understood the team’s decision.

“I think that the whole situation has been a tough one in some ways, but also I think understandably they went in a different direction,” said Schumacher in a press conference confirming his IndyCar move.

“The information that I had pretty much until the end was that we’d been in contention for that seat, and then they went a different direction, which is fair enough, and it just led to me having to understand, okay, what do I want? Do I want to try and keep getting back onto the F1 grid or do I want to do racing that I enjoy?

“That’s obviously single-seaters, and yeah, thankfully the opportunity came up with a team, and I’m super glad and super happy to be here where I am now.”

Mick Schumacher, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda

Despite being out of F1 since losing his Haas seat at the end of 2022 and now leaving the European racing scene altogether, Schumacher doesn’t believe his move to IndyCar marks the end of his F1 ambitions.

“I think that in any case, obviously the world of F1 is a very specific one and a special one, but obviously it’s still a single-seater [in IndyCar],” added the 26-year-old.

“I think there have been plenty of great drivers, and numerous ones have also settled into affiliations with other F1 teams for good reason, so I don’t see why the move to IndyCar would close that door, no.”

However, Schumacher claims he is now “100% committed” to IndyCar and detailed what would constitute a successful rookie season for him driving the #47 Honda for RLL.

“I think that obviously everything will be pretty much new to me,” he said. “A lot of the race tracks are new, oval racing will be new, so there are a lot of things that I still have to understand, to learn.

“Obviously, I have great team-mates alongside me - one with a lot of experience and one who has just had fresh experience. I think I have a good combination there of pointers to go off.

“What would be a success? I think ultimately just the feeling that we’ve been able to put everything in place and that we set ourselves, let’s say, a target. What that target exactly will be, I think that’s something we’ll have to figure out as we go and match our expectations to what we can achieve.

“But I am very positive. I think there are lots of good things out there and lots of good things happening at the moment, so I don’t want to say, ‘okay, this is the target right now’, but definitely our aim is to do our best, and that will be figured out along the way.”

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