(Reuters) – Mick Schumacher has announced that he will be racing for Alpine in the world endurance championship next season after spending a year on the sidelines in Formula One. The German driver and the Renault-owned brand made the announcement on Wednesday.
Alpine will be entering two A424 Hypercars with Schumacher, who is the son of seven-times F1 world champion Michael Schumacher. He will be joining French drivers Nicolas Lapierre, Matthieu Vaxiviere, Charles Milesi, Paul-Loup Chatin, and Austrian Ferdinand Habsburg.
Schumacher, who raced for Haas in Formula One in 2021 and 2022 and spent this year as the reserve for Mercedes, will be making his debut in the championship with Alpine.
The 24-year-old expressed his excitement about the new opportunity, stating, “A new chapter is beginning for me with Alpine. I’ve grown up with single-seaters so driving a car with a closed cockpit and covered wheels is a great opportunity to hone my driving skills.”
He also mentioned how much he missed racing during the past year, saying, “I sorely missed racing this year. It’s what I’ve loved to do since I was a kid and it was sometimes difficult to watch the other drivers take to the track.”
Alpine has stated that the crew line-up for the two cars will be announced on Feb. 7. The season, highlighted by the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June, is set to start in Qatar in March.
As of now, Williams is the only team left in Formula One with a potential vacancy for 2024.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Ed Osmond)
