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I haven't read anything trustworthy about the backstage to Michael's departure from Mercedes, but today during the qualy transmission, the Brazilian commentators said that he was actually fired and opted not to say "goodbye" officially with Mercedes (due to resentment) and he actually knocked on both Ferrari's and Sauber's doors looking for a drive there.

Does anyone have any links to people saying what actually happened with him? The commentators were harsh to him saying he actually lost any notion of what's appropriate to do after being dismissed by Mercedes. They said he was actually left hanging instead of being seriously considered by other teams.

You see, I don't think Schumi should be treated in a special way just because he us Schumi, but is he actually leaving F1 on a low note? How much of this is true?

No he was not fired, they are just allowing his contract to run out. There's a big difference between the two.

I had a job at Sainsbury's that I didn't care for, my 3 month probationary period lapsed and they chose not to mature it into full employment... Technically I wasn't fired, but...

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PLAY A RECORD KARL COS I'M GUNNA KNOCK YOU OUT!!!

You weren't fired. But you weren't hired (again) either. Like Schumi.

I think we're encroaching on discussing semantics here...

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PLAY A RECORD KARL COS I'M GUNNA KNOCK YOU OUT!!!

Not at all. Fired means you have generally broken the terms of your employment either seriously or repeatedly. If your contract lapses then the employer no longer requires you.

No he hasn't been fired. He had a contract, it expired and Mercedes chose not to renew it. If anything you could say Mercedes had a vacancy for next season as there was nobody contracted to do Schumacher's job.

We can discus the intricacies and vocabulary if you want but everyone knows the situation. Schumacher wanted the drive but had no contract, Mercedes chose to sign Hamilton instead.

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I remember when this website was all fields.

OK. According to you, that would answer the first part of my question. However, was it really the case of Mercedes not giving a shit and hiring Hamilton in spite of Schumacher and have they not communicated him BEFORE the official announcement? How did Schumacher know about it?

What about the second part? Did he go around asking for a drive and was dismissed like an old wasted veteran who is on the dawn of his career or was he treated in a respectful manner? I'd love to be a fly on the wall of both Sauber and Ferrari offices when he talked to them.

Also, there clearly was an indisposition between him and Mercedes. Would he not try to partner Hamilton since nothing was said about Rosberg being the official driver in the other garage for next year (even if he have a contract)?

Why would Mercedes want to do that? Rosberg has outscored Michael 93 points to 43 so far.

If he went to Ferrari looking for a drive he is deluded and I'd imagine the conversation was very very short. Sauber I've no idea.

I'm sure anyone Michael spoke to would have been polite and respectful, why wouldn't they have been. However I think his offers to drive for a team would have been met with very little interest.

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I remember when this website was all fields.

What about the second part? Did he go around asking for a drive and was dismissed like an old wasted veteran who is on the dawn of his career or was he treated in a respectful manner? I'd love to be a fly on the wall of both Sauber and Ferrari offices when he talked to them.




Team owner Peter Sauber admitted at the Singapore GP that he would sign Schumacher "immediately" if the former World Champion became available, while Mercedes are believed to have offered the German a management role within the team.

http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1/new ... 013-season

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Get your facts right first, then you can distort them as you please. Mark Twain.

Schumacher is becoming an annoyance now on the track. Every other complaint is about him holding up someone or he is doing the kamakazi run ins into drivers. You can tell he is fed up with these cars and tires as well. He is probably getting tired now and losing concentration by the minute. These lackluster cars with heavy fuel and fragile tyres this year are probably irritating the more aggressive drivers and schumacher probably can't wait to leave now. I think when you got Hamilton waiting in the wings to sign longterm then schumacher was indirectly let go, and Rosberg is young so inevitably Schumacher quit/fired. He had 3 years. But these new generation tires and cars with the bad Mercedes cars didn't help at all his comeback.

He's gonna take Fernando out tomorrow to help out his son

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I remembered Brawn saying Schumacher did not give a firm decision on staying on and Merc didn't want to wait and signed Hamilton. It was Schumi's indecision rather than Merc firing and judging by today's quali (better than the Ferraris), i think Schumi is regretting quitting. He's still quick!

More like he wasn't sure he wanted the drive anymore, which is why he was putting off the decision to renew. And most of all the indecision was because Merc didn't want just a single year commitment from him. They wanted more, he wasn't sure he had it in him, and then Hamilton became available.

Everything worked out just fine.

NOW, we can move along.

All this makes sense. Michael has put in some really good drives this year; his Austin quali was outstanding in that problematic car. To be faster than ayoung talent like Rosberg takes some doing, at any age. Unless of course Rosberg has slowed for some reason/s?

DG: good topic/questions raised; be interesting to get more concrete info.

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well if he knocked on saubers door , why didn't they sign him -peter did say he would sign him if he was interested

i havnt seen any indication that schumi has knocked on sauber's door (no factual proof anyway), so as far as im concerned it never happened.

Officially? No.

Actually? We don't know, but it seems likely that he had made it clear he only wanted a short extension to the contract (if any - officially he hadn't made up his mind), and Lewis became available.

Hardly suprising that Merc decided to take advantage of this.

Merc probably sent Schumacher a "Happy Retirement" card and he took the hint.

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Vettel / Raikkonen / Button

The whole thing was v odd. It would be 'expected' that Schumi would announce he was leaving - before Merc announced they had signed up Lewis?

Unless someone integral to the decisions made decides to write a book, I suspect we'll never know.

Or maybe he decided that he might as well retire, when Bernie "spilled the beans" to Eddie Jordan.

Rosberg went back to the old car for Austin, though his reasoning isn't clear to me.

The OP's question reminded me about something Jérôme D'Ambrosio said a few races ago (as co-commentator on RTBF): apparently when Schumacher was looking into a come-back, he didn't contact Ferrari first, and they didn't like being by-passed like that.
(I thought about putting this in the official Schumacher thread, but I don't believe I am allowed to post there.)

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Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.

Maria de Villota

The Jist I got was they had planned to do the Schui announcement first. However McLaren announced Perez first and that started the snowball affect and Merc announced Lewis.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

Wasn't schumi offered a drive at sauber which he turned down?

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And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension. Ayrton Senna

Schumacher has clearly a motivation problem on these cars. Besides the whole concept of DRS, KERS and shitty tires, the Mercedes is tyre eating soapbox.
I still think that Schumacher was hired to develop the car, otherwise Brawn wouldn't have hired Rosberg first, and Schumacher second. I watched a few complete raceweekends at the track, and one of the most remarkable things was Schumacher pushing like hell from friday morining 9.00 am untill sunday 16.00. Doing a lot of laps with different tires, setups and fuel loads.
Every practice he was doing his laps consistently.
What I'm trying to say is that in his was different in his Ferrari era for sure.

And the situation is that he ran out of a contract, and Mercedes must do something to improve, otherwise it will be an exit like BMW and Toyota.

No. Sauber made comments in the press that they would love to have Schumacher, but the comments were just in response to posed questions.

Monisha Katlenborn said in the team principals press conference that there were no actual approaches or talks with Schumacher.

The official line (which may or may not be true) is that he just made the decision to retire and that was it, no talks with other teams.

Wacked out idea for a thread.

Exactly.

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I'm in a band...

well you never know Ralf is retiring to so may be with some backing wee may see hrt team morth in to team Schumacher

It was indeed a very good session from Michael, but the big gap can be partly explained with the fact that Nico was running the old exhaust system they had previously used at the start of the season, while Michael had the new Coanda system in his car. According to Nico they did this to evaluate some changes regarding next year's car.

About Michael's contract situation, as trento said, it was Michael's indecision that left him hanging. I read that during the summer break, Merc had asked Michael if he still wanted to continue, but as Michael was hesitant and didn't manage to give them a solid answer, Merc decided to hire Hamilton when they were presented with the opportunity to do so. They did give Michael the option. I'm sure if Michael would've said yes right away, then they would've probably signed him for next season, as this was before Hamilton's and Mclaren's relationship and negotiations allegedly went sour. Of course we can't know if it went exatly like that but it does make sense to me.

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"OHO!-magazine number 46/2006: - I read somewhere that I drive with the luck of a drunk."

Ross Brawn at Hockenheim or Hungary stated that the door was open for Schumacher, but he made an interesting point about the rule changes in 2014 and wanting 2 drivers for next season that would still be there for 2014. I can't remember the exact words, but what I took from them was that if Schumacher wanted to race for another 2 seasons then he'd still have a drive for Mercedes.

He's only got less points because of bad luck. Nevertheless Schumacher is not as young as Rosberg, and it makes no sense for Mercedes to drop Nico for Schumacher.

I have no idea if Schumacher resents Mercedes, he might, getting turned down by Sauber that is absolute bollocks. I don't know what they are talking about. I am also unconvinced that Schumacher would want to oust Massa at Ferrari. They are mates.

Hmm. Buy HRT for him and his brother to play

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I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

Marx (Groucho)

True Schumacher used Coanda, Nico didn't use it.

They've switched Nico's car to Coanda for the race, I think. Why they didn't do that for qualifying is beyond me.

no they haven't, you're not allowed to do that

Actually your probably right.

You're being silly now Fiki

I dont think it was as pleasant as we have been shown, but same result - Hamilton In - Schumacher Out

Schumacher has not got less than half Rosberg's points through sheer luck.

He lost a 4th place in Australia (if he was lucky) and China through bad luck and a 6th/7th in Monaco. He might have lost a couple more minor points finishes through technical issues, like his DRS in Canada, but nothing to make up a 50 point gap. That's ignoring the fact Rosberg was wiped out on the first lap in Japan and Korea, the last lap in Australia and his Inters blistered whilst running strongly in Malaysia.

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I remember when this website was all fields.

He could have got 2nd in China, and no penalty and no car failure in Monaco he would have won. He also lost 7th due to a puncture in Abu Dhabi. That's 49 points. I don't even have to think about Australia, Canada, India etc.

Rosberg blistered his tyres in Malaysia, that's his fault, it's not Schumacher's fault that he got hit from behind by Grosjean. Actually Mercedes were never going to get a big haul in Malaysia because they hurt the intermediate tyres too much. But Schumacher finished well ahead.