Mick Schumacher may be inching towards a plum Alpine race cockpit for 2023.
The young German is rumoured to be struggling to maintain the confidence of both the Haas team as well as Ferrari’s F1 driver development ’academy’.
His uncle Ralf Schumacher, however, thinks 23-year-old Mick is "a candidate" to replace Fernando Alonso at Alpine, with the Renault-owned team’s preferred driver Oscar Piastri likely heading to McLaren.
"It turns out now that Laurent Rossi, the CEO of Alpine who has been mucking up a lot of stories over the past couple of years, has followed Mick Schumacher on social media," said Alexey Popov, the Russian F1 commentator for Match TV.
"Now everyone is saying ’Maybe they won’t take Ricciardo after all. Mick, as we hear, is leaving the Ferrari academy and has problems at Haas.
"Even though he started to go better in the last races, the relationship has apparently been ruined," Popov insisted.
"In short, Ocon is now the lead driver and Mick is young but has gained enough experience for his third season. So there is a lot of talk about him.
"Is it very likely? I don’t know, to be honest," the Russian admitted.