Norbert Haug has dismissed the latest speculation about Michael Schumacher.<\/p>\n
At Valencia, Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn suggested that the seven time world champion’s current three-year contract might be in fact a two-year deal with an option for 2012.<\/p>\n
But Haug, the German carmaker’s motor racing vice-president, insisted on Monday: “Michael says himself that he has a three-year contract.\u00a0 Until then we are not thinking even a bit about what is going to happen.”<\/p>\n
However, 42-year-old Schumacher said when he returned last year that he is not interested in racing in F1’s midfield.<\/p>\n
But Haug has told the German news agency SID that Brackley based Mercedes GP is yet to make its most difficult step.<\/p>\n
“The fact is that in this business there are three top teams, and we have established ourselves as the fourth,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think you jump so easily from fourth to first.\u00a0 From sixth to fourth is already difficult, but from fourth to third, second and first — those are the hardest steps,” insisted Haug.<\/p>\n
He refuses to blame Mercedes’ budget.<\/p>\n
“We can’t hide behind it, because I don’t think it is the limiting factor,” said Haug.\u00a0 “We definitely don’t have the highest budget, but it is good enough.\u00a0 So we need to keep working.”<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Norbert Haug has dismissed the latest speculation about Michael Schumacher. At Valencia, Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn suggested that the seven time world champion’s current three-year contract might be in fact a two-year deal with an option for 2012. But Haug, the German carmaker’s motor racing vice-president, insisted on Monday: “Michael says himself that he …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[2120,3],"tags":[5262,5340,92,242],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12940"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12941,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12940\/revisions\/12941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}