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Comeback Puts Schumacher Legacy on the Line
Alan Baldwin | March 05, 2010

Michael Schumacher, 41, believes he can thrive in the sport once again. (AFP Photo) Michael Schumacher, 41, believes he can thrive in the sport once again. (AFP Photo)
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London. The return of Michael Schumacher, after three years away and at the age of 41, was always going to take top billing in a blockbuster of a season.

The big question, with the championship kicking off in Bahrain next week, is whether the German can roll back the years and deliver what is expected of him in a new era and against one of the most competitive fields in ages.

The box office needs the most successful driver of all time to be back with a bang, fighting wheel-to-wheel to increase his record tally of 91 race wins and challenging for an unprecedented eighth title.

Failure with his new Mercedes team could otherwise damage the glittering, and at times controversial, legacy that Schumacher had established over the 16 years before he retired from Ferrari in 2006.

“It’s not just Michael at 41 that people are talking about,” reigning world champion Jenson Button told Reuters this week.

“It’s Michael coming into a team that’s new to him,” added the Briton, whose place at the former Brawn team was taken by Schumacher after he decided to move to McLaren.

“He was with Ferrari for many years, where I’m sure he could pretty much have anything he wanted, whereas now Formula One is different.”

There will be many challenges ahead for Schumi, not least racing against three other world champions including one — McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton — who was not even in Formula One last time Schumacher was around.

The most fundamental task, however, will be making sure that he beats a young teammate who has yet to win a grand prix, fellow German Nico Rosberg.

Beating a teammate is always a driver’s best measure of how competitive he is, and Schumacher has yet to come off second best against anyone set alongside him.

Schumacher has shown in testing that he still has the pace and fitness. Never one to espouse the line that the competing is as important as the winning, he is certainly not coming back just for fun.

If Mercedes can give him the tools, then Schumacher may not have too many qualms about abandoning the quiet life at home in Switzerland with his wife and young children to rejoin the traveling circus.

“I just have to prove to myself that I am still able, but the main reason why I am doing this is because I feel again thrilled by it,” he said. “I feel big excitement to just drive and compete at the highest level of motorsport.”



Reuters