Autosport: Ferrari's 2007 line-up

It might seem a silly thing to say, but Michael Schumacher has been much in the news recently. This is not because of anything he has won - if we discount the Indianapolis fiasco a year ago, his last victory was at Suzuka in October 2004 - but because of continuing speculation about his future.

In the last week Willi Weber has 'revealed' an approach from Renault for 2007, and there is a certain logic here, for Fernando Alonso is leaving and Schumacher and Flavio Briatore operated very successfully together at Benetton more than a decade ago.

Willi was ever adept at keeping a pot bubbling - remember his suggestion that McLaren were hot after Ralf in 2004? When I asked McLaren folk if there were anything in this, they looked bemused: "This is Ralf Schumacher you're talking about?"

At the time it seemed that Michael's brother wouldn't be able to give himself away for '05 - he and Williams had lost interest in each other and if others were queuing for his services, they were disguising it well. In the end, though, Weber did a deal with Toyota - and not for shekels, either, as Jarno Trulli can tell you. I wouldn't play poker with Willi.

When it comes to Schumacher M, though, no sleight of hand is required. Opinions vary as to whether Michael is quite the driver he was - age will not be defied, after all, and he has been doing this an awful long time - but, at 37, he is hardly an old man, hardly past it. Fangio was 38 before he ever came to Europe.

At Bahrain Schumacher took pole position and led the bulk of the race before ceding finally to the almost inevitable Alonso. He was pleased by the Ferrari's competitiveness, though, and admitted to being agreeably surprised. Had it been maintained through Sepang and Melbourne, he would be in touch with Alonso on points, rather than 17 adrift.

What struck you in Australia, though, was that Michael's sheer combativeness abides. His car was hopeless in the early stages, embarrassing, but once he found some grip Schumacher brought himself into play and was catching Button's Honda when he crashed at the last turn.

In truth, it wasn't a total surprise when the Ferrari clanged into the fence, for several times in the recent past it had been off the road, simply because it couldn't keep up with its driver. Yes, the car was trashed, but that would have brought no recrimination from Enzo Ferrari, just as it never did - in similar circumstances - with Gilles Villeneuve. The Old Man never got angry with a driver who crashed while giving his all: more than anything, he loved a fighter, and that Michael emphatically remains.

He says that the interest from Renault is all very nice, but academic for now, as he won't make a decision until the middle of the season about continuing to drive in 2007. Weber, for his part, says that, should Michael decide to go on, there would be talks with Ferrari before anything else were contemplated.

Much, clearly, depends on the next half-dozen or so races. If, as Schumacher expects, Ferrari competitiveness improves significantly, to the point of challenging for victories, it could persuade him that, yes, of course he wants to go on; then again, he might feel that it would be timely to go out on a high note.

And if Ferrari should struggle? Would Michael begin to lose interest, as he admitted was eventually the case last year and head off into retirement at season's end? Or might he think in terms of a new challenge, of perhaps reuniting with Flav and Pat Symonds?

On the face of it, Renault would struggle with Weber's financial demands, for they are not - in this era, anyway - known for over-paying racing drivers. That said, they are losing Alonso, and ideally need another member of the top three to replace him - which means Raikkonen or Schumacher.

Even this time last year there were folk in the paddock who murmured that they knew - positively knew - that Kimi's manager, David Robertson, had already done a deal with Ferrari for '07. I like David, but he's another whose poker school I wouldn't join. When I asked him about it, over lunch at McLaren somewhere, he grinned and said "wasn't this smoked salmon good?"

Kimi Raikkonen and Jean Todt © XPB/LAT

Jean Todt joined in on the joke, too. As Alonso progressed smoothly towards the 2005 world championship, it was suggested that here was the logical man to carry on Schumacher's work at Ferrari. "No, no," said Jean, with outwardly surprising candour, "there is another driver I prefer - a tall one..."

That was enough to persuade some that probably he had already signed Alonso, but it wasn't the case, as Ron Dennis subsequently proved. Perhaps the murmur long ago, from a well-connected Ferrari 'mole', of a Raikkonen-Rossi partnership in '07, was true all along.

In the last few days the story taking Kimi to Maranello has again been fanned into flame. If indeed he has signed, would Schumacher wish to continue as his team-mate? Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see it - and certainly it would break the pattern of Michael's career, in which he has assiduously avoided superstar partners, not so much, I suspect, because he doubted he could beat them as much he feared their presence would detract from his need to mould a team, have it revolve around him.

This would be a different matter, though. At no stage has Schumacher had a team-mate as frighteningly quick as Raikkonen, and he might just think that, at 38, with 16 full seasons of F1 behind him, it wouldn't be the ideal moment to start that sort of caper.

What I'm saying is that I can see Schumacher or Raikkonen at Ferrari in 2007, but I cannot imagine their being there together - quite apart from anything else, they are the two highest paid in the business and who could afford a driver wage bill like that? If Ferrari have signed Kimi for 2007, it's because they know Michael - who has said he expected to finish his career at Maranello - won't be there.

At one time situations like this were so much more simple. One morning, in the late summer of 1988, I rang Nigel Mansell's house in the Isle of Man. It was reasonably early, and at first he sounded a little groggy, having picked up the bedside 'phone.

"Sorry to waken you," I said. "Just wondered if there was any news abut next year..." Nigel chuckled, and murmured something to Rosanne. "Oh, I may as well tell you," he said. "Next year I'll be a Ferrari driver. I signed the contract yesterday..."