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London. If the jury is still out on Michael Schumacher’s Formula One comeback with Mercedes, then the next two weekends of racing in Spain and Monaco may make a verdict easier to reach.

The seven-time world champion, returning at age 41 and after three years in retirement, has been out-qualified and beaten in the first four races of the season by his teammate, young German compatriot Nico Rosberg.

In Australia, the former Ferrari ace struggled to get past Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari, a 20-year-old Spaniard who was racing at the Melbourne track for the first time, and ended up 10th.

After Schumacher retired in Malaysia and just scraped a point in China with another 10th-place finish, some commentators were ready to write him off, even if others refused to rush to judgment.

“People are going to say he’s past it now, which he probably is,” former great Stirling Moss said after the last race in Shanghai.

Schumacher will use a different chassis in Barcelona this weekend, the one he had in pre-season testing, and the car’s wheelbase has been extended to allow better weight distribution.

The German has probably put in more kilometers at the Spanish circuit than anywhere else over the years and won there six times, including four in a row from 2001 to 2004, during his golden years with Ferrari and Benetton.

He has also won five times at Monaco, which immediately follows Spain. If he fails to shine there, with a car tailored to his requirements, the questions will become even more pointed.

“After Monaco, we’ll know how his form really is,” Red Bull’s Mark Webber told the British Broadcasting Corporation last week. “He’ll feel a bit more at home at Barcelona and Monaco.

“They’re the sort of places, particularly Monaco, where you just plug Michael in and off he goes. If he’s not going to be doing that this year, you can say he might be having problems coming to grips with the car.”

Mercedes boss Ross Brawn, who was Schumacher’s technical director at Ferrari when the German won five titles in a row and most of his 91 race victories, remains convinced the car and tires are the main problems.

“He’s trying to work out how to approach things,” the Briton said after returning from China.

“Undoubtedly these tires are a bit different to what he’s used to and maybe, with the car and the tires, it’s not toward the way he likes to have a car, which is very responsive and very sharp.”

Brawn said that before the season started he saw the same old Schumacher, determined and remarkably fit, and that is still the case, even if the competition is intense.

Schumacher said on his personal Web site: “Our step forward in Barcelona will be bigger than you can make at each race during the flyaways [long-haul races], but it would not be realistic to expect us to suddenly be competing right at the front.

“I am hoping for a better race in Barcelona than I had in China, and of course I would not mind having had better results so far.

“However, the good news is that after three years away, I am feeling extremely motivated. So I am clearly ready to take this challenge.”

The team’s own post-race analysis showed the veteran was getting closer and closer to Rosberg in performance. China, the track that brought Schumacher his last victory in 2006, may have been just a blip.

By lengthening the wheelbase of the Mercedes, the team should be able to hand Schumacher a car that allows him to show off his talent while also giving Rosberg more flexibility.

The concern, however, remains that in the past, and particularly when he was in his early years and shortly after his move to a Ferrari that was then underperforming, Schumacher’s great attribute was his ability to drive around problems and make a poor car look good.

It could be that Rosberg has excelled in taking the Mercedes to two successive podium finishes, but it could also be that the car is not that bad. In which case, the problem is Schumacher.

Retired triple champion Jackie Stewart, who worried before the season about how Schumacher would handle adversity after enjoying top billing at Ferrari, said he still had faith in the German rekindling the old fires.

“The fat lady is a long way from singing,” he said at England’s Silverstone course last week. “You are going to see [Red Bull’s Sebastian] Vettel winning races, the same from Webber, the same from Schumacher when he gets his new car built around him.

“I do not think he will win world championships, but I do believe he will be on podiums, and I think he could still win a race this year.”

  Formula 1

Reuters