Mercedes 3rd driver

[MCLS]

Mercedes will have to find a new 3rd driver as Nick Heidfeld will leave to become Pirrelli's permanent tyre tester later this month. http://www.motorsport.com/news/article.asp?ID=381888 With Mercedes wanting to keep an all German team, this pretty much guarantees that Schumacher will still be at Mercedes in 2011 with Heidfeld being the only competition for next years seat.

 

[teabagyokel]

It seems that Mercedes shocking call to keep Schumacher ahead of Heidfeld is going to end up with them fully committed to the egotistical mid-life crisis that they are funding.

Looking at who the Mercedes third driver should be; there is only one German in GP2 (Christian Vietoris) but it seems like ignoring the nationality question and giving GP2 leader Pastor Maldonado a go wouldn't be a poor idea, even if for Friday mornings.

I look at GP2 because I don't think that you should have an older test driver at this time when test drivers are a pointless appendage, as Andy Soucek realised this week.

 

[sportsman]

I have to agree.It does appear to be an odd decision by Mercedes.Although Schumacher has said that he is already commited to 2011 you do have to wonder if Mercedes are backing the wrong horse.
Why didn't they give Heidfield a few laps on the Friday practice just to get a better understanding of how fast he might be.

 

[Bill Boddy]

....
Why didn't they give Heidfield a few laps on the Friday practice just to get a better understanding of how fast he might be.

Would it be cynical to say that it is because they do not want the current drivers to be shown up?

But it would be very interesting to be able to compare Rosberg and Heidfeld. Any chance of Schumacher having a severe migraine one race weekend?