An Affair to Remember

When did you know?

That was the biggest question buzzing around the Monza paddock on Sunday night after Michael Schumacher finally announced what we had mostly suspected but could not say for definite.

It is very rare to head into a Grand Prix openly aware that a big news story, beyond just the race, is going to happen at a specific time. Knowing it was coming may have given those of us reporting on the weekend more time to prepare stories in advance, but it also increased the pressure in trying to find out what was going on.

From the moment of arrival in the Royal Park, it was a question of chasing clues as to what was about to happen. You had to sort out the facts of those who 'knew' what was going on, from those who had a 'feeling' about what was going on. Even those that claimed they 'knew' were not ready to bet their houses on the outcome.

No one at Ferrari was going to budge in giving out the news early, but even so you never knew if a slip of the tongue or a badly phrased comment would perhaps let the cat out of the bag.

That much became evident during one of the first conversations in the paddock on Thursday morning, as the Formula One circus began assembling at Monza.

Pasquale Lattuneddu and Bernie Ecclestone © XPB/LAT

A group of us bumped into Bernie Ecclestone's right-hand man Pasquale Lattuneddu and the conversation inevitably turned to Schumacher.

What was he going to do? Some of us followed the line published in German newspaper Bild that Schumacher's retirement announcement was definite on Sunday night. Others, myself included, were not so convinced and still had inklings that maybe we would get no confirmation of Schumacher's plans at all.

Lattuneddu, at that point, felt that maybe things were even moving towards Schumacher staying on for another year. In fact, he had spoken to Schumacher's personal assistant Sabine Kehm earlier that day and during their conversation he had remarked about her F1 pass, which does not give her access to the pitlane. "Next year we will give you a red one for the pits," he remarked, well aware of the hidden meaning of his comment.

He said he smiled a lot when, without a moment's hesitation, Kehm thanked him and said that would be great. So was that response simply a throwaway comment through politeness or a genuine slip of the tongue about Schumacher's intentions to stay?

With more and more stories like this coming forward, it was hard not to feel that the paddock at Monza needed some kind of 'Swing-o-meter' to judge where the general mood on Schumacher staying was at that moment in time.

No evidence was forthcoming at Schumacher's packed traditional Thursday media briefing, as he batted away any questions about his future before there had been an opportunity to ask them.

"Are we ready? Good," said Schumacher, addressing the sweaty media bunch assembled in front of him. "Just before we start, because obviously it has been written and said a lot recently in the press, but it is obvious and clear what we have communicated for many months.

"We will make a statement at some stage in Monza and this statement will be [on] Sunday. That means that if you will please understand, there is no point to take any questions or get into it, because it will be made clear then and unfortunately not before for you. So thank you for your understanding."

Friday too brought no further breakthrough in trying to break the doors down at Ferrari. Technical director Ross Brawn had a big smile on his face when I kicked off his Friday media briefing by jokingly asking him whether he could tell us who the team's drivers would be in 2007.

Ross Brawn © XPB/LAT

"This will be very short if you want to talk about drivers," he said.

But after some probing Brawn did talk generally about life in Formula One and Ferrari after Schumacher - and very much gave the sense that he was talking from a position of knowing that Schumacher was retire.

"It won't be the same team," he said about Ferrari after Schumacher. "It will be a different team, but it doesn't mean it will be a worse team. It will just be a different team. Any driver of the calibre of Michael brings something to a team that he is involved in and Ferrari will be different, but when that day comes Ferrari will go forward."

As that latest sentence trailed off, and just as he mentioned 'that day comes', a big grin spread across his face. Looking back, it is clear to see that this reaction came from the guilt of talking about a day that was just 48 hours away, but when sat there you couldn't be sure.

Brawn carried on talking. "Everybody will miss Michael, whoever they are. When he does retire, it will be a big event for everyone and I think someone of his ability, someone of his experience and someone of his involvement will be very badly missed. But F1 goes on, Ferrari goes on..."

There you go again, look. Brawn talked in the present tense about Schumacher's retirement as though the decision had been made.

Yet still we could not be sure. Sat to his left, Ferrari's pressman Luca Colajanni shuffled uneasily in his seat and, when Brawn was asked yet another question about life after Schumacher, he finally spoke up.

"Is he going to retire, for sure?" said Colajanni. "We are talking about it as though everything has been done. Maybe you can ask the question at another race..."

Brawn stayed quiet and we all shuffled off. The 'Swing-O-Meter' moved back towards a definite retirement, but then on Saturday Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo did his best to muddy the waters of what was really going on.

"I hope he continues for 15 more years, because he is the best driver in the world," smiled the Italian. "For human elements and for professional elements whenever he will stop, I will miss him."

So what now? More uncertainty and that continued doubt that maybe Schumacher had not even made his mind up yet. That was, after all, the message coming out of Ferrari after the Turkish Grand Prix - that maybe the announcement we would get here would not be definitive.

Ron Dennis © XPB/LAT

And that was a view subscribed to by McLaren boss Ron Dennis, who on Saturday evening - just as the race stewards were about to open up another can of worms - said he believed that the decision would be deferred.

"If this world championship is important to the team, maybe that would have been enough for them to say, 'well we'll announce our driver line-up at the end of the season,'" said Dennis, who at this stage only knew with certainty that Kimi Raikkonen was joining Ferrari next year.

"I cannot see the necessity of a Monza announcement when you can justifiably turn around and say, 'Well, we told you many months ago it was going to be Monza, but because of the championship being undecided I hope you will understand but we are going to defer the decision'. Maybe there are other things that made them decide.

"I will be very surprised if he announces his final decision. Logic says he will concentrate his mind on the world championship, and that is clearly what he is going to do."

Ferrari's international media dinner that night threw up no further clues at all, but by this stage attention had been diverted elsewhere. Fernando Alonso's grid penalty for impeding Felipe Massa in qualifying had obviously not gone down well at Renault - and the team had gone on the offensive.

Renault's director of engineering Pat Symonds had held an impromptu press briefing up by the media centre later that evening, and team boss Flavio Briatore was going to say something on Sunday morning.

Suddenly the Schumacher story took a backseat, and on Sunday morning the camera crews and reporters who had spent the entire weekend camped outside Ferrari were now bundling their way into Renault.

Sat at the front, Briatore and Symonds explained why they felt Alonso's penalty was unfair, speaking in front of video footage of Massa's on-board camera to show just how far behind the Ferrari driver had been.

And when an emotional Alonso said that he no longer considered F1 a 'sport', it was clear that for a while, there was a story bigger than Schumacher - at least until after the race.

The countdown to the race start was spent focusing on qualifying penalties, FIA bias claims and the race stewards' decisions. It was the first time all weekend that Schumacher's retirement was not the first thing on everyone's tongue.

Ferrari hand out the announcement on Sunday afternoon © XPB/LAT

But then we were there. Through the start, Schumacher's roar to victory and Alonso's exit, it was a strange feeling sat there counting down the laps and working out that we were getting nearer something big. Something very big indeed.

But no one knew for sure just how the moment was going to arrive. After the chequered flag, while Schumacher was informing his team members of his decision over the radio, the media centre was quite silent - wondering and waiting.

Only when Schumacher climbed out of his car and began a longer and more emotional than normal celebration with the team, did the answer start to unravel. That was the moment for me that the 'Swing-O-Meter' moved 99.99 percent towards retirement.

The manner of his joy and yet the way he hugged longer than normal his mechanics, his wife and sporting director Jean Todt delivered everything that I needed to be convinced.

But when did I know for sure?

It wasn't an email landing on my computer, a piece of paper being thrust into my hand or Schumacher saying the words himself.

No, it was moments before Schumacher walked out on to the podium in front of the Monza tifosi for the last time in his career. Autosport's Grand Prix editor Nigel Roebuck had nipped out of the media centre for a post-race cigarette and been among the first to receive the press release from Ferrari staff members heading inside.

With the biggest story of the season in his hands, and unaware that virtually no one else inside the media centre knew, he wandered slowly back to the desk that we were sharing and kept muttering, 'there is no mention of Raikkonen.'

Sat there with my computer on, mobile ready and Blackberry at hand ready to confirm the news for autosport.com the instant it was announced, I looked up to enquire what Roebuck's fuss was all about.

"Where is there no mention of Raikkonen?", I asked.

"On this release," he replied.

And there it was. I grabbed the statement out of his hands and got to work. Within seconds the story was up on autosport.com, and finally we all knew.

It was a bizarre, yet somehow fitting end to what had been by far the most unpredictable and memorable weekends of the season.