News
Months of anticipation and speculation will end Sunday when the Formula One season begins and Michael Schumacher marks his return to racing at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
At 41, the seven-time F1 champion comes out of three years of retirement to race for the newly formed Mercedes GP, which bought out last year's constructors' champion Brawn GP.
Schumacher said he felt like "a child at Christmas" coming to Bahrain, where he lines up against defending champ Jenson Button, two-time champ Fernando Alonso, 2008 winner Lewis Hamilton and talented Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel. Button joins McLaren after stunning the experts with his title at Brawn.
"I love this fight," Schumacher said. "It is because of this fight that I came back to Formula One."
Alonso is the preseason favorites as the driver looks reinvigorated after his move to Italian giant Ferrari, which also welcomes Felipe Massa back for the first time since he had life-threatening injuries in a crash at the Hungarian GP in July.
"It's a very important moment for us after a horrible year. It was also a difficult moment for me with the accident," Massa said. "I'm concentrated, I'm ready 100 percent."
Schumacher's experience could pay dividends as refueling has been banned, so teams can only pit to change tires. Also, the top-10 qualifiers can't swap tires before the start of the race.
The American team, USF1, won't be ready this season, autosport.com reported last week, due to financial turmoil. The team, based in Charlotte, N.C., has released all of its personnel.
Loading...
