Thursday, April 3, 2008

Schuey’s new career?

While some media outlets were rumour-mongering the impending replacement of Felipe Massa with Ferrari wunderkind Michael Schumacher... Or the return of some double world champion Finn. (What day was it once again, Tuesday?)

And although I didn’t come up with anything nearly as clever as My Name is IRL’s scooping us on Pablo Doughnut’s hiring for the second seat at AJ Foyt Enterprises, nevertheless it was surprising to hear that the Seven Time F1 World Champion was making his debut in Motorcycle racing…

Yes, that’s correct! At the tender age of 39yrs old, the German donned his leathers ‘N crash bucket and took part in a minor KTM race held in Misano, Italy this past Sunday.

Having started on the front row, Schumacher fell back to 11th place before putting the hammer down, recording his fastest time on the race’s final lap, with a top speed of 204.8 kph. (127 mph) As the lap was good enough to net him the second fastest overall lap time with eventual winner Andrea Padovani. Stealing the fastest lap honours on the white flag lap with Schuey finishing in fourth, 5.169 seconds behind…
UPDATE
This just in from across the pond, Herr Schumacher was called up by the Ducati MOTO GP team to fill in as its test driver at Mugello, after the team’s normal tester was unavailable. Schumacher ran 42 laps, some 8 seconds off the current pace and stressed once again that while it was great fun and a honour to be asked by Ducati to fill in, he has NO plans of competing in MOTO GP…