On the eve of action in Budapest, Michael Schumacher was in no mood to comment on speculation that has been doing the rounds lately.
”I know it is your job to speculate,” the Ferrari driver told reporters, ”but obviously it is my job not to get into all that.”
A raft of rumours have been doing the rounds; that Schumacher, 37, is finally going to retire; that Ross Brawn is taking a sabbatical; that Kimi Raikkonen has now signed a kosher five-year contract to steer a red car from 2007.
Interestingly, the German rejected one theory that all the gossip could be an attempt to destabilise Ferrari’s run of recent form.
”Rumours,” Schumacher explained, ”we all know them, we all live with them.”
He, therefore, refused point-blank to go into detail – for example – when asked if Brawn’s possible retirement could be a sign of his own dwindling career. ”There are too many assumptions in that (rumour) that are not facts.
”I don’t believe I have to comment.
”It might go one way, it might go another way.”
Kimi to Ferrari? ”That (rumour) is nothing new,” Michael insisted.
Schumacher did, however, spare a moment to ruminate over championship rival – but his former Benetton chief – Flavio Briatore, who this week revealed a brush with cancer.
”We all fight one another hard in the races,” he said of the 56-year-old Italian, ”but privately it is different.
”I am really pleased if everything is positive for him, because he does a good job for F1.”gmmf1 dailyf1news.com
