Owner Peter Sauber admitted recently that he would sign Schumacher
“immediately” if he became available. It is thought most likely that
Schumacher will either retire at the end of the year or be offered some sort
of ambassadorial role for Mercedes.
As part of the announcement on Friday regarding Hamilton’s
arrival, Mercedes confirmed that three-time world champion Niki Lauda had
been offered the role of non-executive chairman of the team’s board of
directors.
Meanwhile, the FIA has published the 2013 calendar, with only minor tweaks to
the provisional version that was leaked over the Singapore Grand Prix
weekend.
The only revisions to the draft calendar distributed to teams in Singapore is
that the Korean and Japanese Grands Prix have been switched around, Germany
has been moved forward a week to July 14 and the Belgian Grand Prix has been
moved to Aug 25.
The New Jersey race that is scheduled to take place on June 16 remains
provisional, subject to a contract being sorted out between organisers and
Bernie Ecclestone.
It is scheduled to replace the European Grand Prix in Valencia due to Spain’s
eurozone debt crisis.
2013 FORMULA 1 CALENDAR.-March 17 Australia; March 24 Malaysia; April
14 China; April 21 Bahrain; May 12 Spain; May 26 Monaco; June 9 Canada; June
16* New Jersey; June 30 Great Britain; July 14 Germany; July 28 Hungary; Aug
25 Belgium; Sept 8 Italy; Sept 22 Singpapore; Oct 6 Korea; Oct 13 Japan; Oct
27 India; Nov 3 Abu Dhabi; Nov 17 USA (Austin); Nov 24 Brazil. *TBC