Mick Schumacher: "This is not a problem to be compared to my father"

Mick Schumacher says it's no problem to be compared to his father, Michael Schumacher, seven-time Formula One world champion.

Mick, 19, starts his first season in Formula 2 this year, starting in Bahrain from March 29th to 31st.

"Being compared to my father has never been a problem for me," he said.

"The goal you want to achieve is to be compared to the best driver in the history of F1, to have that as my idol and my father is very special."

Mick Schumacher is driving the first Prema team, for whom the new Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc was driving the Formula 2 title in his first season in 2017.

Michael Schumacher was seriously injured in the brain during a ski accident in December 2013 and has not been seen in public since. Her family said she wanted to preserve the confidentiality of her health, believing that it was what he wanted.

Schumacher Jr added: "I feel honored to be compared to him because I have just learned and try to improve myself."

Aged 19, he joined the Ferrari Pilots Academy last winter and is expected to complete two F1 tests as part of this deal. These are likely to be with the affiliated Alfa Romeo team.

The German driver, who was speaking in a video interview published by the Prema Team and his management, said that being part of Ferrari's young driver program was "very positive".

He added: "I can learn a lot from Ferrari because they have a lot of experience and I want to work with them to reach the maximum of my abilities.

"Ferrari's first impressions opened my heart and they welcomed me into a family that was still part of my family."

He said he was expecting his biggest challenge in F2 this season to be getting used to Pirelli tires.

These are similar to those used in F1 and are known to cause problems for drivers coming from categories where other tires are used because they behave very differently.

Pirelli tires require careful management because they tend to overheat if pushed too hard. They must be driven within the limits that match them, a feature that tends not to be as extreme as other racing tires.

Schumacher, who won the European Formula 3 series last year, said: " [up] itself is not so huge. In terms of lap times, we are a little faster [in F2] but it is more understanding the tires. This will be the hardest part. "