Stewart brands Ferrari as amateur

MOTORSPORT: Jackie Stewart has branded the behaviour of the Ferrari team and Michael Schumacher's management as "amateur and nonsensical" over their strategy to handle the planned announcement about the seven-times world champion's future career plans.

Stewart, who clinched his third world championship title here in 1973 before announcing his retirement at the end of the season, believes Ferrari is in danger of trivialising the whole issue of whether Schumacher retires at the end of the season with plans to issue a straightforward press release at the end of tomorrow's Italian Grand Prix simply announcing who their drivers will be in 2007.

"The whole question of Michael's future is the biggest story in international sport today," he said.

"And it looks as though he'll be talking to a relatively small group of motor racing journalists (if he announces his retirement). But the whole story is bigger than just a motor racing story. Either way it's being crassly and flippantly handled."

Ferrari press releases are traditionally masterpieces of clipped brevity. The momentous news that could herald Schumacher's retirement could be delivered in a brief sentence saying "the Scuderia Ferrari announces that its drivers for 2007 will be Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa".

Schumacher strode confidently into the paddock here yesterday morning with a spring in his step and a wave for his fans, but still offering no sliver of a clue as to how his future plans will unfold.

Certainly Massa looked confident bordering on the serene. Yet reading too much into the Brazilian driver's beaming countenance could be misleading. It may be tempting to believe that he knows something the rest of the paddock does not, but on the other hand he could still simply be basking in the aftermath of his maiden formula one victory in the Turkish Grand Prix a fortnight ago.

In the unlikely event of Schumacher feeling he needs further unsolicited advice on how to handle any possible retirement announcement, there are two other former world champions in town who clinched titles here and then took dramatically different routes through to the end of their career.

Phil Hill, at 79 the second-oldest surviving formula one world champion and one of only two Americans to take the crown, secured the 1961 title with victory in Ferrari's home race that was tragically marred by the death of his team-mate Wolfgang von Trips and 14 spectators when the German count's car flew into the crowd after colliding with Jim Clark's Lotus.

Hill's formula one career continued in a gentle decline until the end of 1965, but he continued racing sports cars for another two years, rounding off his 1967 season with a fine victory in the BOAC 1,000km endurance event, sharing the distinctive winged Chaparral with Britain's Mike Spence.

At the start of the following year, the introspective Californian suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to renew his international competition licence and, in his own words, "found that I had become a retired racing driver".

Niki Lauda, who clinched the first of his three world championships with third place for Ferrari in the 1975 Italian grand prix, retired twice, once in 1979 and again in 1985 after a four-year comeback with McLaren.

"I think I probably understand better than most drivers just how difficult it is to make that retirement decision," he said.

"When I stopped for the first time in 1979 I'd just got fed up with driving around in circles.

"It was practising for the Canadian Grand Prix, the Brabham team had given me a competitive new car and I should have been really motivated. But I wasn't, so I took the decision there and then to quit.

"After another two years off I came back to drive for McLaren and won another world championship. I finally retired for good at the end of 1985 by which time I admit that I was worried about hurting myself and I was simply concentrating on getting through the season in one piece so I could get out. Okay, the cars were getting pretty safe by the mid-1980s, but there was still the possibility to really hurt yourself."

Guardian Service