Formula One / Ralph Ellis / 30 July 2009 /

He may be the most successful driver in the history of Formula One but Ralph Ellis believes that Michael Schumacher's return is misguided to say the least. Can the German defy our man?

Perhaps Michael Schumacher ought to have given Bjorn Borg a call. Nobody would have been better qualified to say "Don't", which was the one word answer he most needed to hear to the question: "Should I start driving a Formula One car again?"

I can still remember the embarrassment of watching at Monte Carlo in 1991 when Borg made a similar attempt to roll back the years. We had travelled full of excitement to see the great tennis icon return from the retirement which had seemed so premature. For two days all around the glamorous venue of the Sporting Club, set high on the hills overlooking the twinkling March sunshine of the Mediterranean, all the talk over clinking glasses of chilled white wine was of how many titles he could go on to win.

And then to stunned silence he was wiped away in two sets by a guy called Jordi Arrese, whose biggest claim to fame otherwise in his career was an Olympic silver medal in Barcelona when none of the big players bothered to show up.

Borg, mind, tried to rejoin the modern tennis world using his old wooden racquet, so at least Schumacher will step back into Ferrari's latest car with the tools to do the job. But the bold enthusiasm which is greeting the announcement of his planned return today is surely misplaced.

And Schumacher, the most successful driver in the history of Formula One with five successive titles and every record in the book to his name, must know it in his heart of hearts.

Only on Monday his manager Willie Weber had met the German in Geneva and then said: "Whoever sits in the car at the next race in Valencia it will not be Michael. I am not 100 per cent sure, I am 200 per cent sure. He has never driven this car. When Michael was racing he would get as close to perfection as possible. In this case it would not be perfection, it would be a gamble - and that's not Michael's style"

Well perhaps Michael has become a regular Betfair user in his retirement, because having a flutter clearly is his style! He's stepped forward to fill the seat left vacant by Felipe Massa's horrific accident, and at the age of 40 will earn £3million for every race he completes between now and the end of the season.

Betfair's market on whether Schumacher would drive for Ferrari this season inevitably lurched to between [1.03] and [1.09] on his announcement yesterday. It's not yet that big a certainty, though. He has to test the car first, which can't happen for three weeks because of the sport's enforced summer break, and then there will be question marks over the neck injury he sustained in a motorbike accident in February.

If he does come back it will create a massive sideshow to the European Grand Prix in Valencia, and that might just be good to take some pressure off Jenson Button, who remains [2.28] favourite to win this year's world title.

Here's five famous sporting comebacks

1. Lance Armstrong - the ultimate return from illness, he survived cancer before winning the Tour de France a record seven times.

2. Sir Steven Redgrave - "If you ever see me in a boat again, shoot me," he said after winning gold in the 1996 Olympics. Four years later he collected a fifth gold.

3. Muhammed Ali - "The Greatest", stripped of his world titles in 1967 for refusing to fight in Vietnam, he returned to the ring four years later and eventually won the Rumble in the Jungle with George Foreman to regain his crown

4. Lester Piggott - Retired at the end of the 1985 flat season, jailed in 1987 for tax issues, then won the Breeders Cup Mile within ten days of his return to racing in 1990

5. Zinedane Zidane - Quit international football in 2004, but two years later returned to lead France to the World Cup final. This one didn't have a glossy ending because of that infamous head butt

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