There was an interesting story at Autosport saying that part of the reason Mercedes signed Lewis Hamilton to take over from Michael Schumacher was that Schumacher was not coming up with a decision on his future quickly enough, and the team did not want to wait. They did not want to lose out on the opportunity of signing a top driver, should they finally only learn of Schumacher deciding to retire at the end of the season.
Schumacher, of course, will never have met with this kind of situation in the past. Now we will see where he goes from here, at 44 in January. His racing has been at the top level, even if he has been mostly behind his teammate Nico Rosberg. But occasionally, like at the Singapore Grand Prix, he has showed a little bit of lack of quick reaction or judgement when it counts. In Singapore he ran into the rear end of the Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne, and was penalized for it – although not with the heavy fine Vergne received for a similar accident earlier in the season.