Mick Schumacher has been told he must start beating his "washout" Haas team-mate Kevin Magnussen if he is to secure his Formula 1 future.
This year is the German's second in the sport, but much of the fanfare which greeted the arrival of the son of a seven-time world champion has since faded. He may be trying to replicate Michael's success, but so far Mick has struggled with Haas.
The team was entirely uncompetitive in 2021, providing a reasonable explanation to why he failed to score a single point over the course of the season. But Schumacher is still yet to break his duck after nine more races this year, while new team-mate Magnussen has proven the car has been capable of top-10 finishes.
Worse still, he has been in hot water with Guenther Steiner after two huge crashes which took a dent out of the team's comparatively tiny budget for the season. That led to the Haas chief publicly criticising Schumacher in an attempt to push him on to better things.
Some believe, though, that Steiner was wrong to heap even more pressure onto the German, who clearly feels the weight of his long wait for a good result in F1. Sebastian Vettel is one of those who has called on Steiner and the media to "leave him alone", but ex-F1 racer Juan Pablo Montoya understands why there is so much speculation.
"Does he need more time? Yes, he needs more time!" the Colombian said when asked by VegasInsider about the situation. "The media needs to lay off? It's difficult because when Magnussen comes in being out of a car for a year and straight to the first race and beats him, how do you expect the media to back off?
"You can't. It's Mick, you know – it's the son of seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher. You know, he won every younger series, won F3, won F2, you know what I mean. And then you got this guy Magnussen that is supposed to be a washout and he's beating him every week.
"So, the other thing you got to remember for Magnussen, there's no downside for him right now. He got a second opportunity and he's gonna do the most of it, but he doesn't really care whether things go great or not and I think it takes a lot of pressure off and by getting rid of the pressure and the performance comes a lot easier."
