CHT wrote:After reading what MS said about his hunger and energy to come out of retirement and challenge himself for another championship. I cant help but to wonder why MS didnt want to stick around to race with Ferrari?
The reason given by Ferrari was that they already have Massa and Alonso for 2010, hence they cant have MS. To me, this is cant be the truth because Alonso contract with Ferrari was brought forward by a year and they are the first to know MS's intention to come out of retirement.
I am guessing that MS doesnt have very good confident about Ferrari potential for next year hence choose to reunite with Ross to drive with Merc instead.
It is well known that Michael was nubbed into retirement by Monte who wanted to bring in Kimi against Todt, Schumacher and Brawn. It was possible because at that time Michael was mentally exhausted and needed a break. I doubt that he had wasted any serious thoughts before Hungary 2009 on a come back.
It was Montezemolo who got him hooked on the idea that he could sub for Massa until the end of the season. At that time the Santander deal and the Alonso deal had long been done. Kimi was already austed and Alonso was supposed to be announced a week later in Monza. The only reason the traditional announcement did not happen was Massa's situation.
I'm pretty sure that the broken neck and basal skull frakture were the genuine problems that stopped Schumacher in September to drive for Massa. By the time the season came to an end in Abu Dhabi it was clear that Massa and Schumacher both would be fit to drive. Thus the strange three car initiatives from Monte.
To explain why Michael eventually started to listen to Haug and Brawn one has to remember that both Brawn and Schumacher had been screwed by Monte in 2006 and 2007. Same probably also applied to Todt but he had his FIA parachute always with him.
Once Haug and Brawn had learned that Michael was indeed ready to race again after smelling the roses for three years they simply had to exploit all opportunities. Ferrari was blocked for some time and Merc had the opportunity to make the McLaren-Brawn switch early. The launch of the MP4-12C was the perfect public gesture which could be use to pressure McLaren into agreeing an early split. Without that I believe Schumacher had never even considered to race for a Brawn team. But Haug called up a debt of honor and Brawn must have convinced Michael that the car would be good enough. The rest is history.
The Button story is intriguing. In November Button must have seriously over reacted to the scare story (ably supported by McLaren) that Mercedes was to become a German only team. Brawn must have been convinced at that time that Button would stay. Despite earlier talk between Haug, Brawn and Schumacher they were not in a position to do a deal until the negotiations with McLaren were resolved. I know that Merc did beat McLaren down by 500 mil $ between Abu Dhabi and the final agreement. McLaren must have sensed an opportunity to get Button and his #1 for a price that was much lower than Kimi's demands. The Mercedes duo then succeeded to remove all obstacles to the Schumi drive which was a small miracle considering that Ferrari must have felt royally shafted. I have always wondered if Todt had his fingers in that pie to pacify Monte.
