SILVERSTONE, June 20 — Formula One’s most successful driver Michael Schumacher lent his support to a Ferrari-led breakaway series today, saying it was realistic.
“It is simply not understandable that all teams share their view on how to approach the reforms and the governing body still wants to implement something else,” the seven times world champion said on his personal website.
“Of course this seems unimaginable in the first moment, but this time all big teams stick together. This makes a new championship much more realistic.
“It is starting to be a real alternative to me,” added the German.
“As a motorsport fan I want to watch the best show which is where the best drivers and the best teams compete with each other.”
BMW-Sauber, Brawn, Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, Renault, Toro Rosso and Toyota announced on Thursday that they were preparing to set up their own championship after a breakdown in talks with the governing body over next year’s rules.
Schumacher, who won five of his titles with Ferrari and the other two with Renault’s predecessors Benetton, decried the amount of politics in the sport.
“I really hope those political games will soon be ended, they were getting on my nerves during all my career,” he said.
“In the end doesn’t it all come down to one simple fact: Motorsport is a great sport, Formula One has been the best of it and has to remain the pinnacle,” he added.
“Formula One has been the platform for the best drivers and the best teams. This is what is admired all over the world, this is what everybody wants to see.
“But if this is constantly put into question due to permanent uncertainty of rules it is maybe better to really defend that value, leave and establish it somewhere else in a reasonable way.”
Schumacher also serves on the board of trustees of the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA)’s foundation, promoting road safety.
The FIA said yesterday it was taking legal action against the teams and Ferrari while president Max Mosley, who has been at loggerheads with the teams for months over the new regulations, has dismissed the threat of a rival series.
“It is all posturing and posing, and it will all stop sometime between the beginning of 2010 and March 2010 with the first race, it will all settle down and everybody will go racing,” he told the BBC. — Reuters
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