It has already been two years since Mick Schumacher had a full-time single-seater racing drive after dropping off the Formula 1 grid.
American team Haas decided that his services were no longer required, and let him go after the 2022 season.
Before long he joined up with his father’s old employers – Mercedes, and has been a reserve driver for them since.
But with no seat for 2025, it will have been three seasons at least by the time he steps into the cockpit of a Formula 1 car again – so where should he go to give himself the best shot at that?
Why Mick Schumacher should go to IndyCar
Currently, he competes in the World Endurance Championship for Alpine and just secured his first podium in the series at Fuji.
He has shown signs of steady improvement throughout the season, but the problem remains that it is a closed cockpit championship.
The longer he goes without racing single-seater cars in a full-time capacity, the less likely people are going to be to hire him.
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It may be part of the reason why his own Alpine team opted to go with Jack Doohan for 2025 instead of himself, despite testing both in an older car.
So a move to North America, where he can conduct a full season of open cockpit racing makes sense for the German.
Where in IndyCar can Schumacher go?
There are only four seats left in IndyCar for the 2025 season after Rahal Letterman Lanigan announced Louis Foster – the reigning Indy NXT champion.
The most intriguing opening is at Schumacher’s former junior formulae team – PREMA, who he won the Formula 2 title with in 2020.
They have already signed his title rival up from the same year that he won – Callum Ilott, who has already got some valuable IndyCar experience.
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The most worrying thing for Schumacher is, that the longer this goes on, the less evidence there is that he has improved or has the potential to be a star in Formula 1.
If he moved to IndyCar, as Romain Grosjean has proved, there is success to be had for those who have been good in other single-seater categories.