Michael Schumacher’s father has chimed in on the ‘will-he-won’t-he’ speculation by predicting that his Ferrari-driving son will not retire at the end of the current season. 60-year-old Rolf Schumacher told the Express publication that Michael, who is due to reveal his future to the world at Monza next month, has genuinely ‘not yet’ decided whether or not to hang up his racing gloves.

”My feeling is that Michael will go on,” Schumacher Senior - also Toyota driver Ralf Schumacher’s father - said, ”but I cannot speak for him. ‘It is his decision alone.”

Rolf’s comments tie-in with the most recent whispers from Maranello, which suggest that Michael has indeed indicated that he will race in 2007.

But similarly reliable noises from the Ferrari camp in Italy also indicate that Kimi Raikkonen has now penned a contract to join the red team next year, presumably as a joint ‘number one’ alongside 37-year-old Schumacher.

”If Michael has stopped having fun, he will stop,” Rolf Schumacher went on, ”and if he says ‘I can still beat the boys’, then I see him going on.”

Schumacher’s Dad does, however, concede the genuine possibility that his ultra-successful son will no longer feature on the Grand Prix grids of 2007.

He admitted: ”If Michael says in Monza, ‘I am stopping’, then I am sure that will disappoint many people.

”But life goes on, and there is still another Schumacher in Formula One …”

[GMM]

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