We here at openpaddock.net have been trying our best to keep up with the Michael Schumacher to Mercedes circus and an interesting development has been posted at motorsport.com that may make things a little easier for the now German outfit.
In September it was though that Michael Schumacher had signed a contract extending his stay at Ferrari as a consultant/test driver. According to some suspect media statements by Ferrari spokesman Luca Colajanni, the German may have actually not signed the agreement. Colajanni indicated he was not aware of a physical contract being signed, but then questioned if a man’s word was not enough to have the binding agreement. We know in the Formula 1 world that a verbal agreement means nothing as seen by the diffuser row, but if this was in fact a verbal agreement, than Michael would technically be free to sign with Mercedes at will. This teamed with the German’s obvious desire to get back into a race car would make for an interesting situation in Maranello.
A man’s word is a man’s word in a family, but think back to the times that Ferrari has tossed Michael into the fire. Luca’s forcing him out of his seat for Kimi and Felipe, and then blaming him for the misfortunes seen early in the 2009 campaign. One must ask themselves how many more times the legend can be thrown under the bus before enough is enough. All is not 100% with a Schumacher signing as Mercedes has also been looking at Polish ace Robert Kubica who may be with out a ride next season if Renault decides to jump ship. The plot thickens and we will do our best here at openpaddock.net to keep up with developments as they are released. Off season…we don’t need a darn off season!
I’ll believe it when I see it.
What misfortunes did Luca blame Michael for? I don’t remember hearing anything about that.
Remeber back to one case at Malaysia when it was supposedly Michael’s fault that Kimi had taken full wets instead of intermediates. Michael was on the pit wall for the first five races and recieved scathing comments from the Ferrari “family”. They figure they can throw him under the bus as often as they like because nobody dare question the golden child. It was a sad set of circumstances at the beginning of 2009 made by Ferrari management that seen the issues…not Michael…but how convinient…
One starts to question why Di Montezemolo keeps pushing for 3 car teams when clearly the grid will be quite full next year… probably not 13 teams, but that is a discussion for another time. Luca was pushing for 3 car teams so that they could run Schumi next year. Maybe the Schum said either I race for Ferrari next year, or I race somewhere else….
We can only hope. Think of how cool it would be to have Schum leading Mercedes, Fred running things at the prancing horse, Lewis at McLaren and Vettel with the drink racers. That would be a grid to behold!