The first day of the new season kicked off with a trip to a Mercedes dealership on a highway out of Bahrain’s capital Manama, to see Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg. This was one of those occasions which was more interesting for what it looked like rather than what was said. It was a bit of a mess organisationally, with the principals over an hour late and then delayed further by a decision to do a TV scrum before the formal press conference, rather than the other way around. So by the end of it we had lost a whole More…

Nick Fry perpetuated the rumours about Michael Schumacher making a comeback with his team as he spoke to the press today after his appearance at the Motor Sport Business Forum in Monaco. He declined to comment on whether the team was talking to the 41 year old and said that they had a shortlist of “3 or 4 drivers”. He said that nationality wasn’t important because Mercedes already has a German driver but he said that experience was vitally important. They may announce the identity of Nico Rosberg’s team mate this year but it would more likely be next year. More…

I’ve just been invited to take part in a conference call later this morning with Dr Dieter Zetsche, the CEO of Daimler which owns Mercedes Benz and Norbert Haug the head of Mercedes Benz motor sport. The subject of the call is to discuss the future of Mercedes’ engagement in Formula 1. Discussions have been ongoing for Mercedes to buy a controlling interest in Brawn GP and to leave McLaren at the end of the existing contract at the end of 2011. McLaren has been seeking to extend its engine supply arrangement to the end of 2012, the final year More…