Date set for Schumacher's first oval test

Mick Schumacher’s first oval test will take place during a busy month of February.

The new Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing IndyCar Series driver is set to explore the 1.5-mile Miami-Homestead Speedway facility in Florida with the No. 75 RLL Honda on Feb. 4, days prior to a mass gathering of teams and drivers at the Sebring International Raceway road course on Feb. 9-10.

It’s a short turnaround for the paddock after Sebring’s short-course outing as the field reconvenes one week later in Arizona at the one-mile Phoenix Raceway oval on Feb. 17-18. With the greater need to pass his rookie oval test in front of IndyCar officials prior to running at Phoenix – and on the big Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval for the April 28-29 Indy Open Test – the visit to Miami-Homestead is an important one for Schumacher.

“He’ll be in a car three weeks in a row, Homestead, Sebring, Phoenix,” RLL president Jay Frye told RACER. “And we’ll get him on the simulator before then. He’ll go to an oval, street course, basically, with Sebring, then another oval, and that’s the first two races we have with a street and an oval. The sim schedule is being worked on, but we will certainly have Mick in the sim prior to going to Homestead.”

RLL is also working through a list of candidates to select an IndyCar veteran and oval specialist who can assist Schumacher – and all of RLL’s drivers – in a similar fashion to Dario Franchitti’s advisory role at Chip Ganassi Racing and Rick Mears’ mentorship across generations of Team Penske drivers.

“Graham’s really good at that, but he’s already got a lot to do on a weekend; he's busy driving, too,” Frye said. “Sometimes it's good to have somebody go between the drivers to help them, so that's something that we're definitely looking into. Right after the first of the year, I'm sure we'll have more of a conclusion on that, because it’s important.”