The recent history of Formula One has showed us that Schumacher also had lieutenant drivers when winning a world title – Johnny Herbert at Benetton, Eddie Irvine, Rubens Barrichello and Felipe Massa at Ferrari. With the 41-year old revealing that he's going for an 8th F1 crown, it's only natural to assume he'll return to his old habits at Mercedes as well.
However, the German marque's motorsport director Norbert Haug made it very clear that the No 1 status within the team is up for grabs for any of its two drivers, and that Rosberg is in fact happy that he'll have Schumacher as his teammate.
“To be a team's number one is done only through extraordinary effort, and I trust that both of our drivers will give this, especially if we give them a very good car,” said Haug, according to German news agency DPA.
“He has always wanted to drive the Silver Arrows in formula one, and have Michael Schumacher as his teammate. That may sound like a fabulous PR statement, but it is precisely the truth,” added the 57-year old German.
As hard as he may try to convince us of that fact, the first proof that Schumacher is set to doing his own ruling inside the Ross Brawn-managed team has already surfaced in the media in recent days. The German demanded/asked (as you may) his team to give him the No 3 race number, as he has a thing with odd numbers in the series. Needless to say, he eventually got it.
The No 3 race number previously belonged to Rosberg. While winning each of his 7 world titles with an odd race number on his car, no one in the history of the sport has become world champion when competing with the No 4 race number. And that's another thing Rosberg has to worry about before the start of the season.
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