That’s according to Eddie Jordan, at least. He may be a figure of quite some fun, but he’s pretty well connected…
Schumacher was, of course, a Mercedes sportscar driver and it’s no surprise therefore that he’s being heavily linked with the second seat in the Mercedes GP team. Or maybe that will be the FIRST seat now?
The facts, such as they are, stack up to support the rumour; Schumacher previously intended to return to F1, Mercedes retain Ross Brawn as Principal – an F1 genius who was heavily implicated in the number of championships won by Schumacher, and of course the whole Mercedes/Germany connection.
Betting against the Return of the (Schu)Mack(er) is the fact that Schumacher’s loyalty is strongly perceived to be with Ferrari. He holds a current sportscar testing contract with them and it therefore wouldn’t be surprising to find either Ferrari or Mercedes stating that a conflict of interest exists.
It’s understood that Schumacher would sign for the same deal that JB turned down. His earnings could obviously be expected to be vastly greater than Jenson’s due to the sponsorship attraction of Being Michael Schumacher. His arrival at Brackley would surely be a shot in the arm for a team who gave their all to Jenson over the last twelve months only to see him wave goodbye from the end of the driveway.
If the deal came together… well, you’d have to be mad to bet against Schumacher in a works-Mercedes-powered Ross Brawn chassis. It would be a car with the poise of Nureyev, the fists of Chuck Norris and the brain of, er, Einstein. You see where I’m going with that…
Speculation aside, will it happen? It’s impossible to say - all anyone ever knows in F1 is that you never know until you know. What we DO know is that Prost, Hill, Mansell et. al. taught us a tough lesson; you should never go back.
It’ll be a quiet day in the Rosberg house if this is officially announced 
UPDATE: Sabine Kehm (spokesperson to Schumacher) says that an F1 comeback by Schumacher is “highly unlikely”. Bah.
“You can never say never in this sport, but to me, a comeback is highly unlikely at the moment.”
Here’s where the fire started – the full quote from EJ;
It started with a meeting between Michael, Ross Brawn and Daimler chief executive officer Dieter Zetsche at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
At the moment, it is not possible for Michael to drive for Mercedes because he has a consultancy contract with Ferrari, but I understand he was due to meet Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo with a view to him being released – and that it will be approved because it is in the interests of F1.
I believe that is being planned at the moment.
I also believe Ross and Michael have spoken in recent times and that Michael likes the idea of driving a Mercedes run by Ross. It’s a mouth-watering idea.
Schumacher was bitterly disappointed he didn’t get to come back to replace Massa – he’s keen to race again. And this is a dream for both parties.
Michael and Mercedes go way back – he drove for their sportscar team before he raced in F1, and they were responsible for getting him in to F1. They paid the then Jordan team to give him his debut in 1991.
TR Motegi Full