Michael Schumacher comes home to F1

Fit, focused and desperate to race � The German F1 driver is preparing to fight for an eighth title with Mercedes GP after three years' absence from the sport

The 41-year-old German formula one driver Michael Schumacher and his teammate Nico Rosberg at the presentation of the new Mercedes GP team in Stuttgart.

Photograph: Reuters

His back as straight as a guardsman's, his chin � that caricaturist's delight � jutting out from beneath the cap bearing the logo of his personal sponsor, with a purposeful gleam in his eye and super-confidence radiating from every pore, Michael Schumacher strode back on to the world stage today. So begins a comeback to match that of Lance Armstrong, another seven-times champion, and � some time in the future � of Tiger Woods, another contemporary exponent of crushing dominance.
Only Italians could dispute the suggestion that, almost 20 years after he made his Formula One debut, Schumacher's reappearance as a member of the new Mercedes-Benz team means that he has finally found his way home. After a single weekend with Jordan, a few years with Benetton and a sporting lifetime with Ferrari, at last he finds himself in a grand prix team where at least some of the workers speak his native tongue.
"Quite a lot of my history and quite a lot of my heart is red," he said, making a diplomatic reference to his 11 seasons with Ferrari. "You can't forget or deny all the good moments we had together. Now we will compete against each other, but that doesn't mean we have to forget the past."
With Ross Brawn, who supervised all his seven championships with Benetton and Ferrari, he has always spoken the same language. When Brawn discovered that Jenson Button, his new champion, had made what amounted to a state visit to the McLaren factory in the middle of negotiations last November, his first instinct was to phone his old colleague and suggest that it was time for all the light-hearted discussions they had shared during Schumacher's three-year retirement to bear fruit.
"Almost every year we have had contact," Schumacher said. "Sometimes it was serious, sometimes it was a joke. When he went to Honda he suggested there was an option, but I wasn't ready at the time."
Both men confirmed that there had been a conversation at the last race of the season in Abu Dhabi, before problems emerged over the renewal of Button's contract with the team. "He touched on it," Schumacher said. "Then he called me and it was clear what his question was going to be."
Very quickly, too, Schumacher's answer became clear, although he referred the decision to his wife, Corinna, before confirming the news that he was willing, at 41, to make his return to the cockpit of a grand prix car and to compete against rivals � men such as the 25-year-old Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, 22 � young enough to be his sons.
"Naturally I had a discussion with Corinna," he said. "She's a very down-to-earth person, as we both are. She ­mentioned the pros and cons, and in the end she left the decision to me. It helped me to make up my mind." He would not specify the precise contents of Corinna's list of "cons".
The comparative youth of his new rivals is clearly not something over which he is fretting. "Whether they're young or not doesn't matter," he said. "You just look at who's in the other car and try to work out how you can be better than him."
Not surprisingly, those brave souls attempting to get him to acknowledge or atone for his old sins � barging into Damon Hill in Adelaide in 1994, pushing Jacques Villeneuve off the track at Jerez in 1997 and parking his car in his middle of the track to obstruct Fernando Alonso's quick lap during qualifying at Monaco in 2006 � by saying that he is now prepared to "win in the right way" are clearly wasting their time.
"I'm sure that 91 victories and seven titles you win only in a bad way and you need to prove something," he responded in a tone on the tart side of sarcastic. "Let's be sensible and think about the reality and look forward to what we might all face and enjoy together."
After much gym work and a session in a GP2 car at the Circuit de Catalunya, he is convinced that his physical fitness is up to the demands of a full season of the G-forces imposed by the high cornering speeds of the current generation of Formula One cars. Neck problems caused by a motorbike crash prevented him from deputising for the injured Felipe Massa last summer, but have now been satisfactorily resolved.
"What normally happens with drivers is that they lose the physical capacity to compete and they also lose the determination that you need to compete at every race, every minute, every lap of the circuit," said Brawn. "Michael's showing that he's achieving the same physical parameters as we saw many years ago. He's an exceptional athlete, don't forget that, and his break has refreshed him. And his work ethic has always been tremendous. He's already spent many days at the ­factory, talking to the engineers."
Schumacher stressed his impatience to get behind the wheel of a Formula One car, starting with next week's test sessions in Valencia. "I'm hot," he said. "It's all taking too long. The discussions started in November and we have to wait until February before I drive. I was used to working through the winter and testing in January."
His enthusiasm, he stressed, remains undimmed. "The main reason I'm doing this is that I'm thrilled about it. I've raced karts and bikes while I've been away from Formula One, and that's been great, but I feel very excited about competing again at the highest level of motor sport. I've always been focused and motivated and determined, and that's how it is now. No more and no less."
A slightly more cautionary note came from Brawn. "Until he starts competing, none of us know what his level will be," the team principal said. "But in the latter part of 2006, just before he retired, he had some of his strongest races. We've got an absolute belief in him. Maybe it will take one or two races, but I personally expect him to perform at a very high level straight away."
And on the question of whether Schumacher or Nico Rosberg will be given equal status, Brawn was blunt. "The No1 driver is the fastest one, whoever is winning races. We'll give maximum support to both drivers. Of course if one of them turns out to have a better chance of the championship, there may be different priorities. Last season we gave Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello equal support, and that will be the case this year. I've had a long-standing relationship with Michael, and we can't ignore that, but there will be complete parity of equipment and support. It's a non-issue." You can bet, looking at the glint in Michael Schumacher's eye, that it's a non-issue for him, too.



Richard Williams

Schumacher will be fighting rivals and the sands of time

Lewis Hamilton, it is safe to assume, will be having a very happy Christmas this year.
When he started his Formula 1 career in 2007, the man who became F1's youngest world champion said his one regret was that he never got to race against Michael Schumacher. Now, following the German legend's decision to come out of retirement and race for Mercedes in 2010, Hamilton can fulfil his ambition.
For those of us watching from the sidelines, Schumacher's return is an equally mouth-watering prospect.
At 41, Schumacher will not only renew his battles with Fernando Alonso - the man who beat him in a straight fight for the world title in his final season in F1 in 2006 - but start new ones with Hamilton, Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and the new world champion Jenson Button, whose cars rarely afforded him the chance to take on Schumacher before.

Schumacher's ability to mix it at the front seems to me a given.
Even if he is not quite as quick as he was, as his former team-mate Eddie Irvine suspects, Schumacher will be more than good enough to win races assuming Mercedes provide him with a competitive car - a Michael Schumacher at 90% of his best is still better than the vast majority of the F1 grid.
"I still feel absolutely on the edge," Schumacher said on Wednesday. "This year, when I got back in a go-kart, I was straight away on the pace. I have to prove it, of course, but all the people (I will be working with) have no doubt about my ability."
Ross Brawn, the man who will be masterminding Schumacher's return just as he did all seven of his world titles, is also in no doubt that his new driver will be able to compete at the highest level.
"I asked Michael exactly that," the Mercedes team boss said. "He is the best judge of what he can do. He told me he can do it and I have absolute trust in him, so I'm very confident. He'll do the job."
Whatever happens in 2010, this latest venture is unlikely to harm Schumacher's reputation. Nothing can erase the memory of seven world titles and 91 victories, of a driver to compare with the very greatest names in F1 history.

Schumacher will no more diminish his legacy than did Lance Armstrong when he came back to the Tour de France four years after the last of his seven titles, and, at the age of 38, finished third in arguably the world's toughest endurance event.
If anything, Armstrong's achievement enhanced his standing, and such is the work ethic that Schumacher applied to his career - one of several characteristics he shares with the American cyclist - that the same will surely to apply to him.
But that is not the same as saying that, at 41, he can be the force he was at, say, the beginning of this decade.
Racing drivers tend to slow down as they get older. The reason for that is not that they lose their ability, but because their desire and commitment diminishes.
The willingness to put everything on the line in pursuit of that last scintilla of speed reduces as a man's mind opens to other aspects of life and an awareness of his own mortality grows.
For all Schumacher's talk of his motivation returning after a three-year break from the rigours of F1, of his being thrilled to race finally for Mercedes, not even he will be able to prevent this natural law having some effect.
There are a handful of moments, any one of which could be seen as illustrative of a time when the mantle of greatest driver in the world began to pass from one generation to the next.
Alonso beating Schumacher in a tactical battle in Bahrain at the start of 2006, and the desperation with which Schumacher deliberately crashed his car at Monaco to prevent the Spaniard snatching pole position in the dying moments of qualifying are two that stick in the mind.
But the one that perhaps stands out most of all was during the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix, when Alonso passed Schumacher around the outside at Suzuka's 130R, one of the most demanding corners in F1.
As he swept around the outside of the Ferrari, Alonso's speed at the apex of the corner was 208mph. Knowing that any contact between the two cars would have resulted in an accident that at least one of them may well not have escaped unhurt, the bravery required to pull that off against a man who had built his reputation on bullying and intimidation was immense - the more so given that, two years before, Schumacher had edged Alonso on to the grass at Silverstone at more than 180mph.
But it was not so much the move itself that was telling - once Alonso was alongside and going faster, Schumacher had no choice but to give way - as the mindset that allowed him to think about trying it.
Asked about it a few weeks later, Alonso told the veteran F1 journalist Nigel Roebuck: "At times like that, I always remember that Michael has two kids."
So few words, so much said. In the minds of Schumacher and his rivals, those assessments of what is worth risking and what is not will have grown larger, not smaller, in the three years since his retirement.
Be that as it may, we are talking about moments in extremis here, incidents that happen along only occasionally.
It was in these moments that Schumacher's notorious willingness to dabble in the darker aspects of sporting morality in his quest for success reared its ugly head. It is this side of him that means some of Schumacher's rivals will be a little ambivalent about his reappearance on the grand prix scene. Their tolerance of the dubious ethics that went hand-in-hand with the German's towering ability had been stretched to breaking point by 2006. And most of them were glad to see the back of him.
One suspects, too, that many of them may not be that keen on having him back for another reason - because he is so good.
As good as ever, or not quite as good as that, probably still amounts to a man capable of winning the championship. And that leads one to believe that his chances of success depend on his car.
There are question marks to varying degrees over all the potential title contenders next year.
Can Ferrari, where Alonso now occupies Schumacher's former seat, recapture the form that abandoned them in 2009? Can McLaren make a car that performs on fast circuits as well as it does on slow? Will Red Bull, using a Renault engine, be compromised by the uncertainty surrounding the French manufacturer's involvement in F1 following the decision to sell 75% of the team to a private equity company?
There are uncertainties over Mercedes, too, particularly after the team's slide from competitiveness in the second half of 2009 in its former guise as Brawn. But with them there are arguably less than over any of the other teams.
Given that his new team won the drivers' and constructors' championships in 2009 with a car that was compromised by former owner Honda's withdrawal from F1 last winter, the new Mercedes car will almost certainly be pretty handy.
On that basis, it could even be argued that Schumacher - who will surely have the upper hand over team-mate Nico Rosberg - will start the season as title favourite, at least until the pace of the teams' new cars becomes apparent.
The fact that it is possible to say that about a man who turns 41 on 3 January proves just what a remarkable sportsman Michael Schumacher is, and underlines what makes this such a compelling twist in the unfailingly dramatic narrative of Formula 1.

By : Andrew Benson (BBC F1 Blog)

2010 : The Year of Legends !

Lewis Hamilton welcomes back 'legend and really nice guy' Michael Schumacher to F1

Michael Schumacher versus Lewis Hamilton: the mere thought of such a rivalry has left the motor racing world feeling sorely deprived.

Its sudden realisation on Wednesday, after three years of being thwarted, fuelled a type of anticipation to which even the ice-cool Hamilton was not immune.
While Schumacher refused to name those whom he perceived as likely adversaries, Hamilton, whose precocity has recalled a certain German of mid-Nineties vintage, has become established as his heir apparent � the only man who could emulate or eclipse a target of seven world titles.

The only element missing is the spectacle of Schumacher reasserting his claims from the cockpit of a Ferrari, the 40 year-old being as indivisibly wedded to the prancing horse as Hamilton is to the McLaren technocracy.

But all that matters for now is the end of the hypotheticals. The cries that followed Schumacher's retirement were invariably along the lines of, "If only he had raced for one more year � then we would have seen him compete with Hamilton." Now we will, and the reaction from Woking was effusive.
"It's great to have Michael back in Formula One," Hamilton said. "He is a legend and a really nice guy, and I am happy that he has once again got an opportunity to do the best job in the world. I wish him my absolute best on his comeback with Mercedes-Benz."
Fair enough, the words from the 2008 world champion sounded about as machine-tooled as his car, but they were informed by a long-standing mutual appreciation.

There was a moment, all too fleeting, when these two totems of their sport faced off on the track, albeit on a karting track in Germany when Hamilton was just 16.
Who could forget, either, the time when Schumacher stopped Hamilton in the Monza pit lane in 2006 to congratulate him on his prowess? It seemed then like some generational shift; there was nothing to augur the seismic implication in Wednesday's announcement: that would, for not just one season but a potential three, be contemporaries.

"I used to watch Michael race when I was in the junior categories," Hamilton remembered. "I always hoped that I would be in F1 while he was still around."
Already there are expectations that the new-found parity of F1 competition automatically means wheel-to-wheel confrontation between Schumacher and Hamilton at every race. Their viscerally raw driving styles have often been compared, and while Schumacher was quick yesterday to stress his fitness, Eddie Irvine, his Ferrari team-mate at the height of his hegemony, sounded a cautionary note.

"The speed will be there, though he won't be as fast as he was seven years ago," the Irishman said. "He's not at the peak of his game, but he's still good enough to win races as he has such an immense talent. It's still four wheels, a steering wheel and an engine and there has never been anyone better than Michael."

For Mercedes, there was only gratification at their brilliantly-executed coup, bringing Schumacher back, in a move of neat circularity, to the company for whom he raced in sports cars before joining Jordan in 1991.
Norbert Haug, the vice-president of Mercedes-Benz motorsports, said: "Michael has more of everything than every other driver. Our sporting ambition has always been that Michael should drive again where his professional career had started, and he knew that.
"We often joked about it after the races and discussed the prospect seriously several times during the last 14 years in Formula 1. It didn't happen in 1995, it didn't happen in 1998 and it didn't happen in 2005.

"I am delighted that it will now happen in 2010. Everybody at Mercedes extends a very warm welcome to our 'apprentice' of 19 years ago. That apprentice is now the most successful racing driver of all time."
It is a billing to which, for the time being, even Hamilton has to bow.

By Oliver Brown

Schumacher's Back ? or not ?

Mercedes will lure Schumacher back

Michael Schumacher is certain to make his Formula One comeback with Mercedes' new team in 2010 his fellow countryman Timo Glock said at yesterday's launch of the new Virgin Racing team. And as Ferrari made it clear that they will not hold Schumacher to the consultancy contract he has held since his retirement from racing at the end of 2006, the whispers about his return were turning to shouts within the Formula One world.
"The flame is still there, it's still burning," said Glock, the former Toyota driver who will be partnered at Virgin by the Brazilian rookie Lucas di Grassi, "and it will be great if Michael returns. For me, it is quite obvious he is coming back. There's still a lot of speculation, but in the end he is a crazy race driver and he wants to come back to racing. It's not enough for him to just do kart races, or to go to the Race of Champions at the end of each year."
Ferrari's president, Luca di Montezemolo, scotched suggestions that the Italian manufacturer would not release Schumacher from his contract yesterday: "It is not binding. It is clear that if he decides to take another road our agreement will no longer be valid, that is logical. You can't work with a competitor and with us at the same time. But I still haven't spoken to Michael about it. He is only a dear friend, not a team member."

Schumacher tried to return in July as stand-in for Ferrari's injured Felipe Massa, but his neck, injured in a motorcycle race in February, proved unable to withstand the high G-forces imposed by an F1 car. It is now believed that these problems are behind him, and he recently won one of the kart races organised by Massa in Brazil. Though the cornering forces are lower in a kart, it is clear that his competitive spirit is undiminished.
It is also thought that events in his personal life have made him consider a return to his "comfort zone" of wheel-to-wheel competition.

There has been no reaction from Schumacher's representatives beyond a spokeswoman's comment last month: "Michael is enjoying his life. A return to Formula One is not a subject for debate at the moment." But it may be telling that fellow countryman Nick Heidfeld, believed a likely candidate for the second Mercedes seat alongside Nico Rosberg, was also hedging his bets as a possible driver for Lotus until they announced their pairing of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen on Monday.
Recently Germany's Bild newspaper reported that Mercedes have formally offered the seven-time world champion a relatively modest salary of �7m (�6.3m) to join their line-up. Any contract, however, is likely to be subject to a clause that Schumacher first completes a successful test in January.