{"id":523343,"date":"2010-04-11T14:36:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-11T18:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/04\/11\/mercedes-refutes-rumors-of-schumachers-imminent-re-retirement\/"},"modified":"2010-04-11T14:36:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-11T18:36:00","slug":"mercedes-refutes-schumacher-retirement-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/523343","title":{"rendered":"Mercedes refutes Schumacher retirement talk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Filed under: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/category\/motorsports\/\" rel=\"tag\">Motorsports<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/category\/mercedes-benz\/\" rel=\"tag\">Mercedes-Benz<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/category\/rumormill\/\" rel=\"tag\">Rumormill<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/sundayafternoonclub.blogs.topgear.com\/2010\/04\/09\/schumi-a-bit-rubbish\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" vspace=\"4\" hspace=\"0\" height=\"358\" border=\"1\" align=\"top\" src=\"http:\/\/www.blogcdn.com\/www.autoblog.com\/media\/2010\/04\/schumi-rain-sepang.jpg\" alt=\"Michael Schumacher\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s pretty safe to say that Michael Schumacher isn&#8217;t quite back up to vintage form. After winning seven World Championships, Schumi spent three years on the sidelines before leaving retirement to take the wheel at the newly-rechristened <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/make\/mercedes-benz\/\">Mercedes-Benz<\/a> GP team, headed by his longtime collaborator and strategic mastermind, Ross Brawn. But in the three grands prix so far this season, the world&#8217;s most accomplished driver has been consistently outperformed by his younger teammate Nico Rosberg. In fact, Schumi&#8217;s one of only two drivers &#8211; along with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/category\/renault\">Renault<\/a> rookie Vitaly Petrov &#8211; to be out-qualified by his wingman in all three races, reinforcing the adage that an F1 driver&#8217;s teammate is his chief rival.<\/p>\n<p>His lackluster performance has left pundits wondering whether Michael&#8217;s return was ill-conceived. There&#8217;s even speculation that even though his contract with Mercedes extends through 2012, Schumacher could bow out by the end of this season.<\/p>\n<p>The top brass at Mercedes, however, have been quick to defend their star driver, blaming themselves before blaming Schumi. Motorsport chief Norbert Haug says Michael is &#8220;highly motivated [towards] the long term&#8221;, with team CEO Nick Fry warning not to &#8220;underestimate&#8221; Schumacher&#8217;s potential for a comeback. With sixteen races left to go this season, there&#8217;s plenty of time to see who&#8217;ll turn out right.<\/p>\n<p>[Sources: <a href=\"http:\/\/sundayafternoonclub.blogs.topgear.com\/2010\/04\/09\/schumi-a-bit-rubbish\/\">Top Gear<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.espnf1.com\/mercedes\/motorsport\/story\/14046.html\">ESPN F1<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/04\/11\/mercedes-refutes-rumors-of-schumachers-imminent-re-retirement\/\">Mercedes refutes Schumacher retirement talk<\/a> originally appeared on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\">Autoblog<\/a> on Sun, 11 Apr 2010 13:36:00 EST.  Please see our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.weblogsinc.com\/feed-terms\/\">terms for use of feeds<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h6 style=\"clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;\"><\/h6>\n<p><a href=http:\/\/en.espnf1.com\/mercedes\/motorsport\/story\/14046.html>Read<\/a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/04\/11\/mercedes-refutes-rumors-of-schumachers-imminent-re-retirement\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permanent link to this entry\">Permalink<\/a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/forward\/19434826\/\" title=\"Send this entry to a friend via email\">Email this<\/a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/04\/11\/mercedes-refutes-rumors-of-schumachers-imminent-re-retirement\/#comments\" title=\"View reader comments on this entry\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Filed under: Motorsports, Mercedes-Benz, Rumormill It&#8217;s pretty safe to say that Michael Schumacher isn&#8217;t quite back up to vintage form. After winning seven World Championships, Schumi spent three years on the sidelines before leaving retirement to take the wheel at the newly-rechristened Mercedes-Benz GP team, headed by his longtime collaborator and strategic mastermind, Ross Brawn. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}