Currently reading: Mercedes wants Schumacher
Mercedes GP CEO says Schumacher is its number one target for 2010

Mercedes GP CEO Nick Fry has revealed that his team wants to sign Michael Schumacher next season.

Mercedes has been strongly linked with a deal for Schumacher ever since it announced it would be running a full works team next season and has still yet to confirm who Nico Rosberg’s team-mate will be.

Ferrari has cleared the way for Schumacher to be released from his road car development contract and German media claimed over the weekend that a Mercedes/Schumacher deal was already in place.

Fry revealed that Schumacher was on top of Mercedes’ wish list, but he wouldn’t confirm whether a deal was yet in place.

“He would be very good for our team,” he told the BBC. “The view from inside F1, not just my team, is they all hope it will happen. I can't tell you at this stage [if it will happen], unfortunately.

Fry said that although Schumacher would be Mercedes’ first choice, it was still considering other drivers should the seven-time world champion decide not to return.

“A number of drivers are still available if Michael were to decide not to drive,” he said. “Then there are alternatives that we would be happy to go with.”

Schumacher was set to stand in at Ferrari for the injured Felipe Massa last summer, but fitness concerns stopped him competing. It is understood that the German has been undergoing extensive fitness training since the summer to prepare himself for a full F1 return.

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cimardinius 17 December 2009

Re: Mercedes wants Schumacher

TegTypeR wrote:
If racing his motivation, why haven't we seen him on track in another series since his retirement?

Well, he has been racing bikes. Not in a frontline chapionship, I admit. But, it does show that racing has not left his blood. Surely, when a married 7 times world champion with children takes up bike racing, it demonstrates that he has a real passion for racing?

Broom Broom 17 December 2009

Re: Mercedes wants Schumacher

I'll hopefully only need to say it one last time and that'll be the end of it: it's crass to keep introducing the idea of Schumacher remotely wishing to prove anything or worrying about losing anything.

I think it's quite obvious that if or when he returns, it will be for two main reasons, and they can be put quite simply - He has missed the thrill of Grand Prix racing and he sees a unique set of circumstances unfolding before him, where Brawn controls a team in which he could become dominant once more. Schumacher's numerous and far more dangerous track excursions of the past three years have held little competitive challenge or satisfaction.

Regardless of anybody's misunderstanding of Schumacher's raw skill, he is perhaps most significantly a master of development and competition. He is a racing genius, and it will be utterly fascinating to see him adapt his genius to whatever the new circumstances are upon his re-entry into the Formula One bear pit.

I see it as an irrelevant intervention to belittle or question what he is hopefully about to do, and feel that people are demonstrating either a meaningless prejudice or a lack of profound interest when they say these things. I have not yet seen one good reason why he shouldn't join Mercedes GP in 2010.

I might just say that although Big Ed may sometimes be a little over-exuberant in his attacks on imperceptive opinions, I have a sense that it's because he is concerned by anything that has the tiniest possibility of affecting the right decision.

It's not a mark of any inflated idea of what consequence these comments have, for we all know it's a minor one at best; it's a mark of the passion that all genuine Formula One fans have for the sport and what Schumacher will bring to it next year.

kcrally 17 December 2009

Re: Mercedes wants Schumacher

i dont think mercedes know what they are doing. every manufacturer is pulling out of f1, and mercedes go and throw a few more million at it. a sportscar programme would have suited mercedes and probably their fans, much better.