Exclusive: RLL President praises Mick Schumacher as "very serious about his craft"

While the 33-car field of 2026 Indy 500 entrants is currently preparing intensively for the upcoming highlight of the season by driving six hours a day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, this experience is a completely new one for the three rookies in the field. One of the rookies is Mick Schumacher, who is competing for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL).

At RLL, Schumacher can draw on a wealth of experience and get advice whenever he needs it. His go-to people—among others on the team—include Graham Rahal, Takuma Sato, and Ryan Briscoe.

Graham Rahal, son of Bobby Rahal—the 1986 Indy 500 winner and founder of the RLL team—is set to make his 19th appearance in the Indy 500. Sato, who is once again driving RLL’s fourth car—used exclusively in the Indy 500—is set to make his 17th appearance and is already a two-time Indy 500 winner.

During his active career as an IndyCar driver, Briscoe competed in the Indy 500 ten times; in 2012, he was the pole-setter (as a Penske driver at the time). Briscoe has served as a driver coach at RLL since the start of the 2026 season and, in this role, primarily works with Schumacher.

Mick Schumacher, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda

RLL Team President Jay Frye, who served as president of the entire IndyCar Series until early 2025, is well aware of the favorable environment Mick Schumacher finds within the team. But he also knows that Schumacher is someone who brings a wealth of experience to the table—albeit not from the IndyCar Series, let alone the very specific discipline of oval racing.

"I think being in the position he is, it obviously benefits him to have Graham, Takuma and Ryan all with him, right, which is really a good thing. They bring different opinions and different skill sets, you know, than what necessarily he has too," Frye said in an interview with Motorsport.com.

What Jay Frye loves about Mick Schumacher

Speaking about Schumacher, Frye says: "Obviously it's very foreign to him because he'd never done it, but he just picked up on it very quickly, and we see that. He picks up on everything very quickly. He's definitely a student of the sport, student of his profession, the way he goes about himself, and very particular and — he's a real, he's a pro."

That’s exactly what Frye noticed about Schumacher, not least during his first oval race. At the one-mile oval in Phoenix, where the second race of the season took place in early March, Schumacher stunned two-time IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden—who went on to win the Phoenix race the following day —by securing P4 in qualifying.

Not only Newgarden, but Frye as well is impressed when he looks back on Schumacher’s performance that weekend: “At Phoenix, you know, that certainly exceeded our expectations for a first oval — Fourth (in qualifying), and we had a problem in the pits that we didn't have an air gun failure, you know, he probably wouldn't have won a lap down, which is, you know, quite spectacular."

However, the race weekend in Phoenix in early March wasn’t Mick Schumacher’s very first appearance on an oval. A few weeks earlier, he took part in the two-day preseason test, which also took place at Phoenix Raceway. But it was a different oval test where Schumacher immediately surprised Frye—namely, the very first one.

That first oval test took place for Schumacher in early February at Homestead-Miami Speedway. It was a purely private test by RLL, meaning no other teams were on site. "It's funny," said Frye. "We saw it when we tested him at Homestead, we saw it kind of right out of the box that it felt (and) looked natural to him. Even though he'd never done it, so he kind of got it right out of the box."

Seine ersten Ovalrunden drehte Mick Schumacher am 4. Februar in Homestead

One factor working in Schumacher’s favor, in addition to his extensive experience from other racing series, is his age. The son of seven-time Formula 1 world champion Michael Schumacher isn’t someone who entered the IndyCar Series as a teenager. On March 22 of this year, after he had already completed his first three IndyCar races, Mick Schumacher celebrated his 27th birthday.

"I mean, he knows what he doesn't know," said Frye about Schumacher and oval racing. "He knows what he doesn't know, and he's, like I said, he's very much a student and a sponge. He picks up on things very quickly. Every time he goes out on the track, he gets better, no matter where we're at, right?"

"He's a complete professional, he's very serious about his craft, he's very serious about IndyCar, he's very serious about wanting to be really good at it, and he goes about it that way. I mean, the sky's the limit in what he can actually do, and, you know, we couldn't be more pleased with how things are going," continued Frye.

Mick Schumacher, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda

RLL at the Indy 500 with an "good mix" of four drivers

Frye describes the driver lineup with which RLL is tackling the upcoming season highlight at the Indianapolis oval as a 'good mix.' He focused on the experience of Graham Rahal and Takuma Sato, and the limited oval experience but great eagerness to learn by Mick Schumacher.

Frye also points out that the team’s third regular driver—Louis Foster—doesn’t have all that much oval experience himself. Foster, who at 22 is the youngest driver on the team, was one of the rookies in the field during the 2025 IndyCar season and ended up as Rookie of the Year.

"So you've got two guys with 20 years of experience here, and, you know, two guys with none and one, right, so it's an interesting mix, right?"

Takuma Sato und Graham Rahal: Die Routiniers im Rahal-Team

And what does the RLL team president have to say about the performance Mick Schumacher has delivered so far on the Indianapolis oval? “He's picked up on it very quick. Even at the open test, he was, right off the bat, good. He seems like he's getting more comfortable every time he goes out, I mean, he just did a 20-lap-ish run and led the pack, and things like that, so, certainly doesn't do anything erratic or anything like that."

When asked the final question—namely, what he believes would constitute a success for Schumacher on May 24 in his first Indy 500—Frye struggles to answer. At the same time, he believes the rookie from Germany is capable of a surprise, not least after his performance in Phoenix.

"I think if you look at Phoenix, that was something that definitely exceeded expectations, we didn't know what to expect, first of all, that type of thing, so here we are at the Indianapolis 500, I don't really know exactly how to answer that, you certainly want him to, you know, run all 200 laps, have a, you know, great experience, you know, learn as we go out throughout the whole event, but I certainly think, you know, you could exceed expectations again, you know, here."