Michael Schumacher must be injury-free before returning

Amid an off-season already brimming with driver and team changes in Formula One, speculation is mounting that the sport’s all-time champion, Michael Schumacher, might be back in a race car next year.

The German-born Schumacher, who turns 41 next month, retired after the 2006 season after becoming the only driver to win seven Formula One titles, the last five with Ferrari.

But with the German automaker Mercedes planning to field a Formula One team in 2010 and still needing a second driver, talk is reaching a fever pitch that the team might lure Schumacher out of retirement.

Media outlets, led by those in Germany such as Bild, have reported that Ferrari -- which still retains Schumacher as a consultant -- has all but cleared him to race elsewhere, and that an announcement by Mercedes might come by the end of this month.

Schumacher himself has not publicly confirmed anything yet, but “the view from inside Formula One, not just in my team, is that they all hope it will happen,” Nick Fry, Mercedes GP team chief executive, told the Associated Press this week.

James Allen, who runs a website devoted to Formula One, also noted that Schumacher must be sure he’s injury-free before returning in order to avoid a repeat of what happened this summer.

After Ferrari driver Felipe Massa was seriously hurt in a crash in July, Schumacher stunned the sport by saying he would end his retirement to temporarily replace Massa.

But a neck injury from a motorcycle accident earlier in the year prevented Schumacher from taking Massa’s ride -- a Formula One driver’s neck must withstand tremendous G-forces -- and it’s an open question whether that problem is behind him.

So is the question of whether Schumacher could return to his sport in a form consistent with his remarkable record, a challenge other once-retired athletes ranging from Lance Armstrong to Michael Jordan have taken up with mixed results.

Indeed, reigning Formula One champion Jenson Button told the British newspaper News of the World last weekend that “Schumacher coming back to F1 is great news for the sport. But I don’t know if it will be great news for Michael Schumacher.

“He will be putting his reputation on the line coming back into the sport,” Button said.

Button was the surprise winner of this year’s championship for a team called Brawn GP that had taken over the old Honda team. Brawn was led by former Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn, who had helped Schumacher win his championships.

Button then became one of several drivers to change teams after the season ended by moving to McLaren Mercedes, where he joined 2008 champion Lewis Hamilton. (Mercedes supplies engines to McLaren.)

Meanwhile, Mercedes took over the Brawn team entirely, renamed it Mercedes GP and hired German driver Nico Rosberg, who came over from the Williams team.

And if the Mercedes team recruits Schumacher, it means the hugely successful partnership of Schumacher and Brawn would be reunited.

All of which are just a few of the changes sweeping through Formula One, whose far-flung international schedule makes it one of the world’s most popular sports. Here are some others:

* Toyota and BMW dropped out of the series after the season ended, citing the series’ cost combined with the economic downturn.

But four new teams are scheduled to join the circuit next year: Lotus, Campos, Virgin and US F1, an American team that has yet to name its two drivers.

* Two-time champion Fernando Alonso moved from the Renault team to Ferrari, where he joined Massa.

* Robert Kubica moved from the BMW Sauber team to Renault to replace Alonso.

* The BMW team, which returned to being owned by founder Peter Sauber after BMW left, on Thursday named Japan’s Kamui Kobayashi as one of its drivers.

* The Williams team named two new drivers, Nico Hulkenberg and Rubens Barrichello (who came from Brawn) to replace Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima.

* Lotus, which is backed by Malaysian interests, hired drivers Heikki Kovalainen, who left McLaren, and former Toyota driver Jarno Trulli.

And finally, Formula One is scheduled to return to North America next year with the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal on June 13. The Canadian race was dropped this season when Formula One and Canadian authorities couldn’t come to terms.

Formula One hasn’t raced in America since the last U.S. Grand Prix in 2007 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

james.peltz@latimes.com