It was believed that Schu's greatest problems if deciding to join Mercedes were to be caused by his current contractual commitments with Ferrari. Although being in his final year of contract with the Prancing Horse, Schumacher was confirmed for an additional 3 years by Ferrari, during the Italian Grand Prix in September.
However, his role within the organization has changed dramatically, as it no longer involved being advisor for the Formula One team. The new consultancy agreement he reportedly signed with Ferrari included activities rather related to the company's sports car sector.
Nevertheless, as admitted by Colajanni, it seems a written, binding contract between the two parties is yet to be confirmed by either Ferrari, or Schu. The announcement was indeed made by the Italian company in late September and posted on their official website, but it may have very well referred to a spoken agreement rather than a signed one.
“I can only confirm that the agreement between Michael and Ferrari was announced in September at Monza. I don't know whether the agreement was signed in the physical sense. But as in a family, does the word of the people involved have any value, or not?” said Colajanni for the aforementioned publication.
As suggested by several reports in Italy, even if Schumacher did sign a deal with Ferrari, the company's CEO Luca di Montezemolo is likely to let the German go in case he really wants to. The two are believed to be very good friends and Di Montezemolo will not stay in the way of Schu's dream to return to racing, if that will indeed be the case.
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