Mick Night CLUB

Mick Schumacher is more than just his father's son... as a night out with the Mercedes F1 reserve driver in the car culture scene of Tokyo reveals

- ROWAN HORNCASTLE

Driving around Tokyo is daunting. With no centre or suburbs, its road network is huge, spiralling, occasionally latticed and sometimes subterranean. At times, even Mr Roboto in the satnav gives up and shrugs directions your way. Which has happened. Meaning I’m lost while leading Mick Schumacher (behind the wheel of a stunning Mercedes 190E 2.5-16 Evolution II) through Japan’s neon-lined labyrinth.

It’s a hot, humid evening and Mercedes F1’s reserve driver (and son of iconic seven time Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher) is cutting the perfect shape of a Nineties boyband member. Where I’m perspiring like a burst pipe, he palms back his blonde curls and looks effortlessly cool in his loose fitting, oversized Tommy Hilfiger contractual clobber. Sartorially, it couldn’t be more of a perfect fit for the car he’s driving.

Born out of German touring cars, the Evo II is a deeply lustworthy, boxy and bewinged sports saloon. With a revvy, induction-tastic 232bhp four-cylinder engine mated to a dog leg close-ratio five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive and aero appendages that get petrolheads salivating, it’s a proper tip one’s hat ‘if you know, you know’ car. Mercedes only built 502 of them (as per DTM’s homologation rules) out of some 1.9 million W201 models that it’s based on. So they’re properly rare beasts. The fact we’ve got a quadruplet of Evos following Mick makes the situation we’re in a bit more mind-blowing. But that’s the plan. We wanted to give Mick an evening to remember – to take him away from the repetition and rigmarole of modern media junkets. We don’t want to know where he keeps his ketchup, or when the last time he thought of the Roman Empire was. We want to indulge his love for cars.