{"id":16817,"date":"2012-10-11T07:18:33","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T11:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=16817"},"modified":"2012-10-11T07:18:33","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T11:18:33","slug":"mercedes-denies-schumacher-was-sacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/mercedes-denies-schumacher-was-sacked\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercedes denies Schumacher was sacked"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mercedes chiefs Niki Lauda and Norbert Haug have scotched claims the German squad sacked Michael Schumacher.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ngg-singlepic ngg-left alignleft\" style=\"margin: 5px 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/gallery\/f1-2012-rif-images\/f1-12-logos\/Mercedes.jpg\" alt=\"Mercedes\" width=\"288\" height=\"115\" \/>Mere days after Mercedes signed Lewis Hamilton to be Nico Rosberg&#8217;s teammate next year, seven time world champion Schumacher announced he is returning to retirement.<\/p>\n<p>The obvious conclusion is that the 43-year-old German was pushed out of his seat against his will.<\/p>\n<p>But Lauda, Mercedes&#8217; new non-executive chairman, is quoted by Bild newspaper: &#8220;He was not forced out.\u00a0 I want to emphasise that very clearly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Faced with the same accusation about Schumacher being deliberately ousted, Mercedes&#8217; Haug insisted: &#8220;That was not the case.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Michael&#8217;s thought process about a contract extension was not yet complete, which we not only respected but also understood,&#8221; he told Sport Bild.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Michael also understands that the team had to use that available opportunity when Lewis Hamilton was available.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mercedes chiefs Niki Lauda and Norbert Haug have scotched claims the German squad sacked Michael Schumacher. Mere days after Mercedes signed Lewis Hamilton to be Nico Rosberg&#8217;s teammate next year, seven time world champion Schumacher announced he is returning to retirement. The obvious conclusion is that the 43-year-old German was pushed out of his seat &#8230;<\/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":[3],"tags":[5262,5340,34,92,598,242],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16817"}],"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=16817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16818,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16817\/revisions\/16818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}