F1 2010 Drivers' Championship Odds: Don't even consider backing Schumacher

Formula One / Ralph Ellis / 24 December 2009 / 1 Comments

Avoid Michael Schumacher in the 2010 Drivers' Championship betting

"I still shudder at the memory of seeing Bjorn Borg try to turn back the clock on an embarrassing day in Monte Carlo when he tried to take on the new generation with his wooden racquet. The return of a great champion is always a romantic story, but it rarely has a happy ending."

Formula 1 legend is a short price for the title - far too short for Ralph Ellis who explains why he's no backer of Michael Schumacher

Back in July when Michael Schumacher announced he would step in to the Ferrari cockpit to replace the injured Felipe Massa, it was [1.03] on Betfair that he would drive in a Formula One race again. I suggested laying it, and cursed a few weeks later that I'd only risked 30 pence for a bit of fun to win a tenner, rather than cleaned up.

This morning I've been really daring and chanced six quid to win a hundred! I still don't entirely believe, whatever the pronouncements coming from the Northamptonshire base of the newly established Mercedes Formula One team, that the great seven-times champion will actually make it to the track.

Schumacher signed on yesterday with a flourish of photo calls and brave talk about what he can bring to what was the Brawn team. He insists that the neck injury which ultimately stopped him returning to the track in the summer is now completely cleared up. He's been working in the gym, he's been running the miles, he's watched what he's been eating. He's said all the right things about his desire to race again, and his desire not only to compete but to finish first.

But the fact remains he's 41, and in the small print of the fanfares that accompany his £7million-a-year return to Formula One this morning is the revelation that he still hasn't sat in a Grand Prix racing car. He hasn't even been behind the wheel in one of the high-tech simulators that the drivers use to prepare themselves for the massive G-forces which wrack their spine and neck muscles on race day.

Of course there have been drivers before who retired and then returned. Most memorably Niki Lauda took two years off before signing for McLaren in 1982 and landing his third World Championship not long after. And the Austrian is joining the cheerleaders for Schumacher this morning, insisting: "The young kids - Hamilton, Vettel and Alonso - will think logically that they can give him a lesson, but he might show them the way."

There's a crucial difference. Lauda was still only 33 when he got back into the cockpit, some eight years younger than Schumacher is now.

Even if he makes it to the starting grid, don't be tempted to back him for the title at [5.5]. He's shot in to that price on sentiment, but to suggest he can be an immediate rival for either favourite Lewis Hamilton [4.5] or Fernando Alonso [5.1] is nonsense. His new Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg is a far more realistic price at [18.0].

There are grave doubts on how competitive the car can be because Brawn threw so much effort at winning last season's title that development of next year's model was held back. Meanwhile McLaren appear to have taken the opposite tack, spending the latter half of the campaign concentrating on setting themselves up correctly for 2010.

I still shudder at the memory of seeing Bjorn Borg try to turn back the clock on an embarrassing day in Monte Carlo when he tried to take on the new generation with his wooden racquet. The return of a great champion is always a romantic story, but it rarely has a happy ending.

Five things you might not know about Nico Rosberg

5. Away from racing he plays football with friends - and exercises his mind with backgammon, chess and poker

Comments (1)

1. Sophie | 03 January 2010

   Nico Rosberg didn't win Formula 2 in 2005, it was called GP2, there's a difference, Formula 2 has just been re-introduced to the racing ladder in 2009