Michael Schumacher is making a return to F1

Schumacher, the most successful driver in the history of the sport, quit F1 at the end of the 2006 season but will now come out of retirement to make a comeback as Massa continues to recover from the injuries he sustained in his accident at the Hungaoring.

Although the idea was originally rubbished, Ferrari have confirmed that Schumacher will come out of retirement to replace Massa - provided he passes a fitness test.

“Ferrari intends to entrust Michael Schumacher with Felipe Massa’s car for as long as the Brazilian driver is not able to race,” a Ferrari statement said.

“Michael Schumacher has shown his willingness and in the next few days he will undergo a specific programme of preparation at the end of which it will be possible to confirm his participation in the championship starting with the European Grand Prix on Aug. 23.”

Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button line up fourth and fifth for Brawn Mercedes. It was a fairly mixed day for the Toyota team with Jarno Trulli having a relatively routine run to sixth position on the grid while team-mate Timo Glock suffered a gearbox failure in practice and then was just 14th fastest when it counted. With a five position grid position penalty for the unscheduled gearbox change, Glock lines up at the back between the Force India duo.

The Ferrari looks a real handful to drive in Shanghai this weekend, but stripped of KERS Kimi Raikkonen at least managed to qualify eighth but there was further qualifying disappointment for Felipe Massa down in 13th position following a small error on his critical lap. Defending champion and 2008 race winner Lewis Hamilton qualified ninth in his modified McLaren Mercedes while Heikki Kovalainen was unfortunate to find traffic on his final qualifying run and was just 12th ahead of Massa, Glock and Nakajima.

During an eight-hour hearing yesterday Ferrari, Renault, Red Bull and BMW Sauber challenged the three teams in front of five ICA judges, attempting to overturn the FIA’s initial ruling that the design of the diffuser used by Brawn, Toyota and Williams was legal.

‘The FIA International Court of Appeal have decided to deny the appeals submitted against decisions numbered 16 to 24 taken by the Panel of the Stewards on March 26 at the Australian Grand Prix and counting towards the 2009 FIA Formula One World Championship.

Based on the arguments heard and evidence before it, the court concluded that the stewards were correct to find that the cars in question comply with the applicable regulations.

The vice president of Mercedes Motorsport, Norbert Haug, has admitted that the German manufacturer cannot guarantee its involvement in Formula 1 in the long term.

Mercedes are a major shareholder in and supplier of engines to the McLaren team, who have received more bad publicity recently following the controversial events of the Australian Grand Prix.

Norbert Haug told GP Week magazine: “If you’re asking me ‘are we here for the next ten years?’ then everybody who is honest, and I am honest, cannot give you an answer about how the world, the car industry, the economical surroundings will develop.”

“It is a difficult time for all of us, the whole industry, that’s for sure..It’s not easy for anybody but I hope it changes.”

Although the manufacturer has remained loyal to McLaren - even through the espionage row in 2007 - Haug admitted that Mercedes is disappointed by the recent ‘misleading the stewards’ scandal which has again tarnished McLaren’s image.

“Victories would be better than having discussion like these. But what I want to point out is that we have had some very positive influence. Monitoring what we get back worldwide we are the team with the most international televidion presence and so on,” he said.

“But we are clearly unhappy with the situation, as it is right now. Where we can help from a Mercedes side is to describe it in all openness. I think our team tries to be as open and accessible as possible.

“Yes, this (situation) is not a positive, but on the balance we have had a lot of positives for the money we are investing.”

As 75% of the race distance was not completed, half the points were awarded to all point scorers. Nick Heidfeld of BMW Sauber was fortunate to score the 2nd place while Timo Glock of Toyota, who’d driven an exceptional race, finished in 3rd place. Ferrari had another off day today as both their drivers failed to score any points.

While Massa was already struggling to get into points following yesterday’s incident, his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen threw an almost certain 5th place finish as a result of disastrous strategy. With no signs of rain on track, the team decided to put Kimi on full wet weather tires. The gamble didn’t pay off and Kimi lost around 20 seconds in his first lap after pit-stop.

The final order for Malaysian GP:

Jenson Button  		Brawn-Mercedes
Nick Heidfeld 		BMW Sauber
Timo Glock 		Toyota
Jarno Trulli 		Toyota
Rubens Barrichello 	Brawn-Mercedes
Mark Webber 		RBR-Renault
Lewis Hamilton 		McLaren-Mercedes
Nico Rosberg 		Williams-Toyota
Felipe Massa 		Ferrari
Sebastien Bourdais 	STR-Ferrari
Fernando Alonso 	Renault
Kazuki Nakajima 	Williams-Toyota
Nelsinho Piquet 	Renault
Kimi Räikkönen 		Ferrari
Sebastian Vettel 	RBR-Renault
Sebastien Buemi 	STR-Ferrari
Adrian Sutil 		Force India-Mercedes
Giancarlo Fisichella 	Force India-Mercedes
Robert Kubica 		BMW Sauber
Heikki Kovalainen 	McLaren-Mercedes

For the second straight time, it was Button who got the job done for his team as he stopped the clocks in 1:35.181s, less than a tenth clear of Toyota’s Jarno Trulli. As Button celebrates yet another success for the new Brawn GP team, Trulli will be a little frustrated to lose out on the pole position by the slightest of margins.

Sebastien Vettel was third fastest in his Red Bull Renault three-tenths off the ultimate time but of course takes a ten position grid penalty into the Grand Prix courtesy of his incident with Robert Kubica in Australia.

At Ferrari, it was an evening of drama as Felipe Massa fell at the first hurdle and Kimi Raikkonen scraped into the final round of qualifying in his F60. After setting the ninth fastest time in the final round of qualifying, Raikkonen lines up seventh while Massa is just 16th. Qualifying would prove to be a disaster for the Brazilian Ferrari star who completed just one run in the first round of qualifying on the option tyre and paid the price as he found himself bumped down and out of the running.

The Finn and his team-mate, Felipe Massa set the pace in Friday’s second session as the two broke below the 1:36 barrier with only Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel joining them. Even after setting an impressive pace, Raikkonen has warned against getting carried away. Its to be noted that his car encountered problems with KERS in the 1st practice session.

“This morning we had a problem with the KERS, which cost us a bit of time, but we managed to make up for most of it in the afternoon,” he said. “We had felt that the situation here could be different to Melbourne, but it is still too early to say where we are up against the opposition. “What we can be sure of is that when the car runs trouble-free, we are competitive. We hope we can do a good job in tomorrow’s qualifying.”

Virtual Lap

The lowdown:
A popular track with the drivers, Sepang is something of a benchmark for new grand prix venues. It boasts superb facilities and the layout, noted for its sweeping corners and wide straights, is conducive to overtaking. The start time in Malaysia has been kicked back to 5pm, which should go down well with drivers and race fans the world over. Not only will it be on TV at a more reasonable hour back home, but for those at Sepang it should be a few degrees cooler – the searing heat and oppressive humidity is usually a major talking point here…

Overtaking opportunities?
The first and last corners provide good opportunities. T1is very tight and feeds into T2 as it doubles back on itself – always exciting when 20 cars are trying to squeeze through on the opening lap – while T15 is a tight hairpin at the end of a long straght, which allows cars to slipstream into position.

What they say about it:
“Sepang is a fantastic track, but the climate plays a major role making it very tricky for all of us, everyone is really on the limit and so is the car. The track is very high speed with some great overtaking opportunities.” Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes)

Track the race on the Forums

It is not right to hail Brawn GP’s Formula One success as a David versus Goliath style feat, according to Vijay Mallya. The Indian billionaire is the boss and owner of Force India, an independent team that is yet to spring off the back rows of the grid.

Brawn GP’s Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello qualified and finished first and second in Australia last week, a triumph hailed as a “fairytale” story for an outfit that nearly collapsed over the winter.

But although the Albert Park livery was blank, Mallya insists that Brawn’s success was powered by the huge investment of its now departed owner, the Japanese car maker giant Honda.

He said it is therefore unfair to compare Brawn GP with fellow privateer and UK based Force India’s struggle for Formula 1 success.

“I know that Ross (Brawn) dumped the 2008 car early on, and has spent almost a year developing the 2009 car, with the benefit of a full scale wind tunnel and all the other facilities available at Brackley.

“That car has had a huge amount of technical and financial resources thrown at it,” said Mallya.

“So I wouldn’t say that it’s fair to compare the Brawn GP car’s performance with an independent team,” he added.

The McLaren team has been disqualfied from the Australian Grand Prix following a detailed stewards’ investigation into the incident involving the Englishman and Jarno Trulli on Sunday; the World Champion passed the Toyota under safety car conditions as the Italian ran off the circuit, before then slowing to allow Trulli to retake his position.

For repassing the McLaren, the Toyota driver was handed with a 25-second time penalty which resulted in him losing both his podium position and indeed any chance of points, as the tightly packed field finished the race under the safety car. As Toyota withdrew what would be a seemingly hopeless appeal this week, Trulli reminded onlookers of his version of events: “When the safety car came out towards the end of the race, Lewis Hamilton passed me but soon after he suddenly slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road. I thought he had a problem, so I overtook him as there was nothing else I could do.”

Hamilton admitted to passing the Toyota as it ran across the grass at Turn 15, subsequently explaining that his team then instructed him to yield to Trulli. “I was behind Trulli under the safety car, and clearly you’re not allowed to overtake under the safety car but he went off in the second to last corner,” he explained to SpeedTV on Sunday. “He went wide and onto the grass, I guess his tyres were cold. I slowed down as much as I could, but was forced to go by. I was then told to let him back past, but I don’t know if that’s in the regulations and, if it isn’t, I should really have had third.”

Despite those comments, however, the stewards claim that Hamilton made no mention of this during their post-race investigation into the incident just minutes later, stating that he infact did not slow down to allow the Toyota to retake the place. Having received a recording of McLaren’s radio broadcast during the race, the FIA has removed entire team from the final results of the race for providing ‘deliberately misleading’ information. This includes the second driver, Heikki Kovalainen, who will effectively not suffer the consequences having retired at the end of the first lap.

The governing body has also lifted Trulli’s penalty, which places the Toyota driver back into the third position he originally achieved in Australia.

Follow the story in detail on our forum.