It's Michael Schumacher's third season since his comeback to Formula 1. And it's also the last of the three years of the contract the seven-time world champion signed with the Mercedes AMG F1 squad. But 2012, hasn't been easy for Schumacher thus far. The season-opening Australian GP saw him retire from the race with a gearbox failure, in Malaysia he was harpooned by Romain Grosjean and finished 10th, a mistake from the pitcrew resulted in another DNF in China, Bahrain saw him finish 10th again after starting 23rd, and in Spain, Schumacher retired after a collision with Bruno Senna.
Now, with fifteen races left in the season, speculation has begun about whether or not Schumacher would want to continue in Formula 1 given the nature of the three years of his comeback. 2012, has been the worst start to a season for the German in his many long years of motorsport.
Mercedes AMG F1's CEO Nick Fry has now stated that should Michael choose to quit Formula 1 at the end of the season, there is a possibility that they will consider hiring the services of Paul di Resta, who currently drives for Force India. di Resta, in his second complete season of Formula 1, won the 2010 DTM championship with Mercedes and the 2006 Formula 3 Euroseries championship with the German team too.
Fry stated that while they haven't made any concrete decisions yet, they believe that Paul di Resta is certainly on their radar.
Meanwhile, Schumacher has stated that even though he has a five-place grid penalty for the collision with Senna at the Spanish GP, it will just spur him on to do better in the race. Well, given the talk from the higher ups at Mercedes, a good performance from Michael is a must.
