Mark Slade might become new race engineer for Michael Schumacher (Mercedes GP) in the 2011 F1 season
Michael Schumacher has been struggling vitally after returning to Formula One this year. Michael decided to retire from the sport back in 2006 but decided to return in his friend and former race engineer Ross Brawn’s team Mercedes
that secured both titles quite comfortably last year with the help of the reigning world champion Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello.
Michael claims that the new tyre compound that was introduced this year has been the main reason for his downfall, as it is not easy for him to get used to this new front tyres technology. The 7-time world champion was hoping for
another championship performance after his return but instead, he has been outperformed by his teammate Nico Rosberg almost throughout the 2010 season.
However, Michael is hoping that his team will develop a car that suites his needs for the 2011 Formula 1 season and there are many rumours that Mark Slade, former race engineer of McLaren who worked for champions Mika Hakkinen
and Kimi Raikkonen might take on the same role for Michael next season.
A magazine revealed that Michael Schumacher is expected to hire a new race engineer for his team Mercedes next season and all the fingers point towards Mark Slade at the moment.
Mark Slade is currently Vitaly Petrov’s race engineer at Renault F1 team but is expected to take Andy Shovlin’s job at Mercedes GP. However, Slade has a very good reputation in the sport as he built his career around McLaren and
helped the three Finn drivers Mika Hakkinen, Kimi Raikkonen and Heikki Kovalainen for more than 10 years in the sport.
Slade left after Jenson Button arrived at the team and it seems that until now, this information has not been confirmed by Mercedes GP. However, Mercedes GP has not denied these rumours either and as a part of the press release
process, it was revealed that Nico Rosberg is also expected to hire a new race engineer. It is expected that Tony Ross, the race engineer who worked with Nico during his time in Williams will join Nico in team Mercedes GP.
However, Andy Shovlin and Jock Clear might continue with Mercedes GP as generalists next year, and it would be interesting to see what the new race engineers come up with for the team.
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