Schumacher, the son of seven-time world champion Michael, has joined the Ferrari Driver Academy after winning the European Formula 3 title last year.
As reported by Motorsport.com, this new role had the potential to enable his first F1 testing opportunity, with either the Maranello team or one of his customer outfits, Alfa and Haas.
“There’s a shortlist and Mick is on the shortlist because he’s one of the guys in F2 who qualifies for the rookie test,” Vasseur told the F1 official website.
“The choices are pretty limited. But we haven’t made a decision. There are several names on the list.
“We will continue to examine the options available and discuss them with Ferrari.”
The teams are officially allowed to test for four days at the start of the season. However, two of these days must be completed by drivers who have not participated in more than two F1 races.
This means that Alfa cannot call its official reserve driver, Marcus Ericsson.
Racing drivers Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Räikkönen could, however, be used for the first two days of testing in Barcelona in May before deciding to go to Hungary for the Grand Prix test for rookie drivers in the summer.
Vasseur said it was a “technical decision” determined by the team’s development plan.
Alfa reserve situation unclear
Although Giovinazzi has a full-time Alfa drive this season, the Italian remains unofficially Ferrari’s reserve driver this year.
Ferrari doesn’t have a formal backup plan, but it has long been known that its former development driver would be called upon by its customer team if Sebastian Vettel or Charles Leclerc were not available.
As for Alfa’s reserve options, the situation is less clear as official third driver Ericsson has signed a full-time IndyCar deal for this season.
This means that it is either not available on some Grand Prix weekends or not available at short notice.
One solution could be to turn to Ferrari’s new development drivers, Brendon Hartley and Pascal Wehrlein.
Both joined the Maranello team’s simulator program this year and have relevant experience thanks to their campaigns with Toro Rosso (Hartley, 2018) and Sauber (2017).
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