Schumacher returns to Formula One
July 30, 2009 by David Twomey
It has inevitable written all over it and the Ferrari Formula One Team has confirmed that seven-times World Champion, Michael Schumacher, will return to the cockpit of a race car as a temporary replacement for injured driver Felipe Massa.
In an official announcement this morning Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro said it intends to put Schumacher, who retired from Grand Prix racing in 2006, in Massa’s car until the Brazilian driver is be able to race again.
“Michael Schumacher said he is ready and, over the next few days, will undertake a specific training programme at the end of which confirmation will be given of his participation in the Championship with effect from the European Grand Prix on the 23rd of August,” the official statement said
Schumacher, 40, will begin training immediately to make sure he is in shape for his comeback and that he is ready to go.
Schumacher suffered some injuries during the winter after crashing a racing motorcycle, and the team needs to be sure he is fit.
Schumacher’s return could prove to be a triumph of boredom over sensibility as while he has kept in touch with the latest race car, he’s driven it at the Fiorano test track, he will not have the level of race fitness that made him the most formidable F1 driver for more than a decade.
He has acted as a mentor to the team since retiring, and particularly to Massa, but will now have to accept a role as number two driver to Kimi Raïkkönen.
Meanwhile, Massa, injured in a freak accident during the Hungarian Grand Prix, has continued to make a recovery and is reported to have taken his first steps.
Doctors have also said they expect he will make a full recovery and return to F! racing.
The European Grand Prix on August 23 will mark the first time that Schumacher races alongside Ferrari’s Kimi Raïkkönen, and it will be the first time that he experiences F1’s new slick tires and kinetic-energy-recovery system on a race track.
In his favour, remaining races take place at tracks known to be among Schumacher’s favourites, including Spa-Francorchamps, Monza and Suzuka.
Schumacher has not raced at Valencia, Singapore or Abu Dhabi, which also are among the coming races.
Print it: 
Primo!
Sucker.
Who will replace “The Stig”??
There are three ways this could end…
1. Status quo – Schumacher will come in and get similar results to Kimi and Felipe which will keep everyone happy and the press will say Schumacher still has it. Unlikely
2. Crushing defeat – Schumacher will have lost the edge and he won’t make it into the points and the press will say Schumacher has lost it, age has caught up with him. Extrmely unlikely
3. Domination. Schumacher will put it on pole in Valencia and lead from start to finish. Schumacher will be hailed as a god again and Kimi will walk away from F1 at the end of the year. Highly likely
In all three scenarios, Schumacher will at one point run someone off the road, just like the old days.
Looking at the points, with 7 races left, it is extremely unlikely that MS can be world Champion. It would require Button to score no more points at all (he is on 70 points right now), so that means that Schumi can just drive hard and have fun.
For the Constructors, with Brawn on 114 points and Ferrari on 40, catching up 74 points in 7 races is again unlikely. However, Ferrari could consolidate 3rd easily and possibly challenge Red Bull if a few things went in their favour. The most likely target for Ferrari is 3rd in Constructors, at least one driver in the top 5, and lots of good testing mileage for next year’s car.
Over the next 3 weeks, expect lots and lots of testing at Fiorano in the dark blue FXX. Actually, that might break the “Summer Break” rules as factories and teams must close down for at least 2 weeks between now and the next race. So perhaps the FXX test tracks will be elsewhere in the world. But I expect it to happen, because the best training and conditioning is still done in a car.
Now while I expect Schumi to have fun, I think other drivers won’t. Arrogant as they are about their own skills, all acknowledge Schumi as great. I would expect Kimi to fire in Valencia to prove himself and to outrace Schumi, but qualify behind. That would be his best hope – after that Schumi would be back in the groove. And Spa is the next race. Heh, I may actually put money on Schumi winning Spa. Alonso we know will take on Schumi, but it depends on Renault continuing to improve over a race distance and not just qualifying. Hamilton will learn he’s just a lucky amateur. Webber I expect to be overawed (considering the comments he’s made about Schumi in the past) but I expect him to continue to work on putting Vettel in his place, so that will leave him with a conundrum if he gets stuck behind Schumi with Vettel in front. Since Brawn need to go backwards in order to go forwards, I don’t expect Button to be in a position to challenge anyone, let alone Schumi, for a couple of races.
Looks like an interesting end to the season. Five teams: Brawn, Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Renault all capable of fighting for podiums and 7 drivers all capable of winning races.
This cheat should have been banned from F1 long ago.
Toxic-Horse, you obviously have no understanding of motor racing. How did he cheat? Spell it out son! He does not design, build or prepare the car. Sure he was/is a tough racer and very arrogant. But a cheat? I don’t think so. He was paid a huge salary and he earn’t every single cent. His skills had a huge effect on dragging Ferrari up from being a laughing stock to 7 times world champions over a 10 or 12 year period. His sportsmanship was questioned at times (rightfully so but then look at Senna!) but cheat? I don’t think so!!
I am referring to the time he deliberately crashed into Damon Hill to insure his championship victory. Among other things.
Toxic_Horse: There were some serious doubts over whether it was a deliberate action. The incident with Villenueve on the other hand was dealt with rather harshly and all his season points were taken away.
Anyway, Damon Hill was gifted the championship by an outstanding car, not being a great driver. Hence why Frank let him go so easily.
And also, do you consider Rick Kelly to be a cheat also?
I’m happy but very surprised that he agreed to fill in for Massa because the potential risks seem to outweigh the potential rewards. I guess he figures that he more or less handled Massa when they were team mates so – assuming he hasn’t lost any of his speed – he shouldn’t have too many problems with Raikkonen.
Anyways, George Foreman, Lance Armstrong and others have shown that ‘old men’ can still do the business after a long layoff so there’s no reason that Schumacher shouldn’t be successful upon his return.
I wonder what makes a man, who has hundreds of millions in the bank and nothing left to prove, want to come back and go through Eau Rouge foot buried to the floor lap after lap after lap?
I wish him well.
Toxic_Horse, didn’t Aryton Senna cheat (deliberately crash into an opponent, Alain Prost at Suzuka in 1990)? He was not banned was he? The present ‘world champion’ has admitted cheating (lying to race stewards to obtain an advantage for himself and his team). But he was not banned was he? Fernando Alonso cheated when he blocked Lewis Hamilton during qualifying for the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix. But he was not banned was he? The Brabham F1 team ran Gordon Murray’s BT46B at the Swedish GP in 1978, but the team was not, as you put it, ‘banned’ was it? The BAR007 raced at San Marino in 2007 was cheating epitomised. But the BAR team was not banned was it? Come to think of it, when has any F1 driver or team been ‘banned’? Seriously then, why among them, should Michael Schumacher have been ‘banned’?
NOW WHERE TALKIN The king of F1 is BACKKKKK YEHHHAAAA..
Amend to what you said mad max, couldnt have said it better myself…cheat? my *** he was a cheat, its racing pure and simple…..The best their was in our modern era and still is, and he will prove it again you watch…well as long as he lets webber come first of course…lol
Apparantly schuey has much respect for webber…
Ban em all i say :0)
Whether you like him or hate him, it’s just what F1 needs at the moment. Can’t wait to watch….
he’s never left.
should be good.
Wouldn’t suprise me if Bernie’s done a back-room deal here. It doesn’t make sense to give the seat to Schuey. If I was running Ferrari F1 I’d be trying to make the most of this opportunity by giving the seat to the teams future drivers – parhaps a young up and coming or a disgruntled Fernando Alonso? The only upside I can see for Ferrari is an increase in revenue from merchandise and perhaps a more secure third place in the championship? I don’t deny he’ll bring some interest back to the sport – he might even crowd out the news of BMW’s exit but are those things really Ferrari’s immediate concern? More Bernie’s I’d say.
Love him or hate him, no one can deny, no matter how much they may hate him, that Schumacher was/is/still the best F1 driver ever. Every single shred of evidence supports this, he basically owns all of the records, no team mate ever came close to him, he was able to do unbelievable things in a race car that not even todays best (alonso) could come anywhere near
I think Supply & Demand is right on the money with this, any other team would have used the opportunity to look at their best upcomming test driver in a real race situation.
Ferrari have no need to put a young up and comer in the car would no doubt feel an unbearable weight of expectation and most likely tear up millions of dollars worth of equipment when they already have their 2010 and beyond driver line up finalised, which is Alonso and Massa with the remaining year on Kimi’s contract being bought out. Even if Massa can’t race next year, they always have the option of retaining Kimi’s services.
Ferrari have never had unproven drivers race for them, any young up and comers they have on their books they always farm out to other teams, eg Massa was farmed out to Sauber for a year before joining Ferrari to gain experience
also, testing is banned this year in F1, so any new kids coming in don’t have the opportunity to drive the car first, the first chance they would get in the car would be on the Friday of the GP weekend. No one outside of the 2 GP drivers and the 2 Ferrari test drivers have driven a Ferrari F1 car in over 2 years… except of course Mr. Schumacher, hence he is the ONLY choice as the two test drivers where never proper racers
Ferrari could have got those motorsport mercenarys,TEAM VODAPHONE to do the job.
Toxic Horse, we all know that Damon Hill was a reasonable second string driver, at best. If he had any racing brains then he would not have tried to pass Shui when he did. He would then have been a 2 time world champ. Yes I know he won the championship but then it was the car (he had) that made him look waaaaaaay better than he is/was. Fairdinkum any half decent F2 driver would have won it that car. Like somebody else said, why did Frank let him go if he was any good?
This will generate a hell of a lot of promotion for the sport.
So many people will be incredibly curious to see how he performs. The media will follow him like a hawk.
This is the Greg Norman comeback of F1
Damon Hill is a guy who Jaques Villinueve IN HIS ROOKIE SEASON made to look slow, JV almost beat damon in his first ever grand prix, only mechanical drama’s cost him the race.
Jaques Villinueve is a complete hack, so to be beated by him…
Apparently; Jacques Villneuve also tried out with Supercheap Racing to take Paul Morris’ seat.. according to reports his performance was impressive and he was excited about the possibility of being part of the competition. Makes you wonder why Morris opted for Tim Slade?
The only reason I can think of is that Morris didn’t want to be replaced by someone whose lap times were better than his….
Which would also include pop star Pink – who was also faster than Morris when she visited QLD on her recent tour. ha ha
THE KING IS BACK AND READY TO WHOOOOOOOOOOOOP SOME ASS!
Anthony – JV was in talks with Paul Morris, but he decided against coming down under because he didn’t want to uproot his family from Canada. He never drove a V8 supercar, negotiations never got that far.
Pink drove a Holden Performance Driving Centre commodore with mild performance upgrades and a roll cage, not a proper V8 Supercar, where do you get this rubbish from?
Toxic_Horse Says:
July 30th, 2009 at 11:39 am
“I am referring to the time he deliberately crashed into Damon Hill to insure his championship victory. Among other things.”
How much was the premium and excess Toxic Horse? I guess if models etc can insure body parts and the like I can’t see why drivers can’t insure a Championship Victory! TVFPIC :-)