Schumacher ‘really sad’ about canceling comeback
Michael Schumacher called canceling his much-anticipated Formula One comeback a “really sad moment.”
Former Formula One driver Michael Schumacher reacts as he attends a news conference in Geneva August 12, 2009. Seven-time world champion Schumacher has cancelled plans of a temporary return to Formula One with Ferrari because of fitness concerns, the German driver said on Tuesday. [Agencies]
He had wanted to help the Ferrari team by replacing injured driver Felipe Massa but was unable to do so because of lingering pain from a motorcycle crash six months ago.
“It’s a really sad moment, probably one of my toughest,” Schumacher said. “I felt back alive and now I had to cancel all this.”
The German, who retired at the end of the 2006 season after a 15-year career in which he won 91 races in 250 starts, said any talk of later returning to F1 was speculation.
“From a purely medical point of view, there are no reasons why that couldn’t be the case. But it’s certainly not a topic that I’m considering right now,” he said.
Schumacher, visibly subdued sitting between his doctor Johannes Peil and manager Willi Weber, said the euphoria surrounding his possible return was “extreme, and so of course the disappointment is extreme, too.”
Peil said it was a fracture at the base of Schumacher’s skull that prevented the return, rather than the fractured vertebra and rib he also hurt in the bike crash earlier this year.
It was too early to say whether the injuries would heal enough to allow Schumacher to make a later comeback, Peil said.
