Marko chose de Vries over Mick for “personal reasons”, claims Ralf Schumacher

Mick was dropped for F1 2023 by Haas in favour of veteran Nico Hulkenberg.

The German’s options were limited for 2023, with AlphaTauri and Williams potential options.

Williams signed F2’s Logan Sargeant, while AlphaTauri favoured de Vries, who impressed on his one-off outing at the Italian Grand Prix.

Ralf - who won six races during his F1 career - revealed there was a difference of opinion between Franz Tost (AlphaTauri’s team principal) and Marko with regards to Mick.

“Franz Tost, as the team manager and team principal, initially wanted a different driver because he knows that it takes two to three years [to get drivers up to speed],” Schumacher said.

“The driver available on the market was Mick. Mick would have made sense as well.

“But then Dr. Helmut Marko came along and, for personal reasons or whatever it may be, didn’t want that and chose Nyck de Vries, instead.”

Ralf believes Marko “has a problem” with the Schumacher name.

“It seems that Helmut Marko has a problem with the Schumacher name,” he added.

“Even though I have a good exchange with him personally, it seems he has some problem with Mick because otherwise, it’s not understandable to me why it didn’t work out from the beginning.

“To be honest, I don’t see anyone else in the squad who would fit in there at the moment.

“That’s why I’m surprised by what Dr. Helmut Marko is doing.”