Schumacher To Develop Ferrari Cars
Ferrari "Super Assistant" finally has his role defined
After retiring at the end of 2006, Michael Schumacher’s role at Ferrari seemed a little wishy-washy. Company President, Luca di Montezemolo, had long ago assured the team’s saviour a role “for life”, probably as Company Ambassador, but when his driving career came to an end the Ambassador status didn’t seem to fully materialise.
Instead, the seven-time World Champion was slotted in to a position within the team, vaguely defined as “Super Assistant”. The position meant that Schumacher turned up to the races he wanted to, chatted with the engineers, shook his head on the pitwall in the early part of the season when the team seemed to be struggling to adapt to Kimi Räikkönen’s driving style and the departure of Schumacher and Ross Brawn, then had a go at testing the car at the end of the season and showing everybody how it should be done.
The successful, dominant tests in November prompted many to speculate that the German might be looking to make a return to driving, but now the team have finally defined Michael’s role. “I will be dealing with the development of the car for the Gestione Sportiva,” the thirty-nine year old ex-racer told Italy’s Gezetta dello Sport newspaper. “We had to see where my presence would be most useful.”
Schumacher also told the newspaper that he would be happy to drive for the team, but not too often. “We haven’t yet scheduled the dates when I will drive the car first-hand; nothing is decided.”
The champion’s role within the team has appeared on many occasions to be a touch contrived, and the new definition appears little different. Ferrari are clearly eager to hold on to the services of the sport’s greatest driver – statistically, at least – and reports abound that his retainer is still higher than that of many drivers on the grid today, including Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen.
The team had hoped to retain the services of Ross Brawn after his sabbatical in 2007, preserving the superteam that brought Ferrari back to be the most dominant team on the grid. Negotiations between Ferrari and Ross Brawn collapsed, however, and the Englishman is now signed to the Honda racing team, where he will work once again with Rubens Barrichello and fellow Brit, Jenson Button.
With Brawn no longer part of the Ferrari package, Jean Todt moved away from the Ferrari sporting division to take over the role of Chief Executive to the whole company. Stefano Domenicali, who had taken over from Brawn as Sporting Director for the F1 team, was promoted into Todt’s vacancy and many wondered what Schumacher might do next.
It appears that di Montezemolo might not have quite turned his former champion into the company ambassador just yet, but Schumacher’s pious status within the team remains in no doubt.
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