What The Papers Say About Schumi's Return

Fleet Street seems to have forgotten that BMW announced they're quitting F1, instead focusing on the return of Michael Schumacher. But now everyone believes it's a good thing...

'Michael Schumacher has never lacked self-belief, but the seven-times world champion's readiness to put his reputation on the line by returning to Formula One as a replacement for the injured Ferrari driver Felipe Massa was last night greeted with amazement and delight throughout the sport.

'On a day when BMW became the latest manufacturer to announce it was withdrawing from Formula One, Schumacher's announcement was more than a welcome distraction. Having retired at the end of 2006, the German had remained involved with the sport as an adviser to Ferrari - the team with which he won five of his world titles - but, despite occasional speculation, had never shown any inclination to climb back into the ****pit on a competitive basis.

'Last night, however, Ferrari announced the 40-year-old had agreed to drive Massa's car in the European Grand Prix in Valencia on 23 August. The organisers of the race, who had been fearing they would struggle to sell tickets after the sport's governing body, the FIA, banned Renault, the team of local hero Fernando Alonso, from taking part as punishment for an incident in which a wheel came off Alonso's car during last week's Hungarian Grand Prix, must have been turning cartwheels.' - Richard Rae, The Independent


'For Formula One there was only one certainty, one cornerstone of the franchise which stood quite untouchable.

'Its name was Michael Schumacher and the moment you heard his name linked with his old team Ferrari you knew it was right. Who else would the great but embattled team turn to in the wake of Felipe Massa's career-threatening injury in Hungary?

'Turning to Schumacher, even at his age of 40, is a not so much a gamble as a reflex - and one of quite impeccable soundness.

'Ferrari could be counted on for such a response more than any other team because their debt to the implacable German is maybe the greatest, even in the age of diffusers and advanced aerodynamics, ever owed to an individual driver.

'Of course, even the verdict that he was, "statistically speaking, the greatest driver motor sport has ever known," did not quite separate him from such masters of Juan Fangio, Jim Clark and Ayrton Senna. What did the trick, utterly, was the sense that he was more than a talented man at the wheel. He was also the drive and the spirit of the team, not only the inspiration of the engineers and the pit-lane mechanics but their most demanding taskmaster.

'He didn't just drive a car, he felt it, smelt it and when it failed was the first to perform a knowing autopsy. He has slightly more than three weeks to achieve race sharpness in Valencia and the next grand prix but, if that sounds like an improbable ambition after three years away from the Formula One track, it is unlikely to trouble him too gravely.' - James Lawton, The Independent


'For a driver who believed in being in total control, both in and out of the car, Michael Schumacher's decision to make a comeback as Felipe Massa's temporary replacement at Ferrari smacks of a 40-year-old superstar who has become bored.

'Schumacher retired from Formula One at the end of 2006, having won a record seven world championships and 91 grands prix. The time seemed right because the German was being usurped by Fernando Alonso, then a rising star and 12 years Schumacher's junior. Alonso was doing to the German just what the precocious Schumacher had inflicted on Ayrton Senna, the man to beat at the time of Schumacher's Formula One debut in 1991. His departure 15 years later - a record for consistent brilliance as the sport's benchmark - was as timely and graceful as his deft touch at the wheel. Having won everything in sight, Schumacher could only lose.

'Nothing has changed within Formula One over the past two years to alter that perception. If anything, the task has become even more difficult as the sport reaches new levels of competitiveness with the tiniest driving error or lift off the throttle costing several places on the starting grid. Yet Schumacher seems prepared to risk replacing his image as one of the sport's greatest protagonists with that of a sad former champion who did not know when to stop.' - Maurice Hamilton, The Guardian


'Michael Schumacher has set the stage for the most remarkable comeback in motor racing history after agreeing to step back on to the grand-prix grid for the first time in almost three years.

'peculation had raged about who could take over for the European Grand Prix in Valencia on August 23; in the end, the answer was standing on the pitwall. The old master, winner of a record seven World Championships and 91 grands prix: Michael Schumacher, the greatest Ferrari driver of them all.

'The Italian team did not need to look any farther than to a man who has dedicated every ounce of his loyalty to a team who turned him into a legend.' - Kevin Eason, The Times


'The grand master of Formula One - seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher - last night threw down his gauntlet to the younger generation by rescuing Ferrari in their hour of need.

'So long as he proves his fitness - and all the indications are the lean, mean racing machine that is Schumacher will do just that - he will face up to 24-year-old current world champion Lewis Hamilton and his fellow German Sebastian Vettel, 22, nicknamed "Baby Schumi". Neither had earned their F1 spurs when 40-year-old Schumacher quit the sport in 2006.' - Nick Stamford, The Express

What The Papers Say About Schumi's Return - Planet-F1 News - from planet-f1.com

I hope he doesn't crash out on turn 1

Originally Posted by King Tut

I hope he doesn't crash out on turn 1 :lo:

:youpunk: :evilish:

Originally Posted by King Tut

I hope he doesn't crash out on turn 1

maybe hamilton will

Originally Posted by SoMxNemesis

maybe hamilton will

He is used to it......