Fancy getting in a car with arguably the greatest racing driver of all time? That’s what’s on offer from the Race of Champions organisers who have lined up a ride with Michael Schumacher as a competition prize to promote this year’s event.
Schumi was the runner-up at last year’s Race of Champions, when he was beaten to the champion’s spot by Sweden’s Mattias Ekstrom, who currently drives in DTM. However, in partnership with Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel, he managed to secure the Nations Cup for Germany.
The former Ferrari pilot is booked to make a return appearance this year and – given that he’s known as a rather competitive soul – is presumably keen to secure the drivers’ title. And you could be there to see the ensuing battle – follow the link below for ticket details.
Schumacher and Vettel are more or less the only drivers we do know about at the moment. Jenson Button showed up last year and there’s been lots of talk about both David Coulthard, who represented Scotland in 2007 alongside Colin McRae’s brother Alister, and Lewis Hamilton attending.
While Coulthard’s fans might well be granted a chance to see him race following his retirement from F1 competition, the situation with Lewis Hamilton is much more complicated – not least whether his McLaren contract would actually allow him to take part.
The organisers say they “look forward to welcoming many of [last year’s stars] back, along with a few new faces too” – that doesn’t tell us much, but it probably includes rallying star Sebastien Loeb and Le Mans winner veteran Tom Kristensen.
An interesting post on the Top Gear News blog has the following speculation to offer: “There are three big names from F1 who have never competed at the Race of Champions: Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen and Robert Kubica.
“We’ve done some digging around and although the organisers wouldn’t admit it, we understand all three have an open invitation to this year’s event.”
Given that you can still get tickets for less than £15 it seems like an absolute no-brainer to us…
• To enter this competition, all fans need to do is text “RACE” to 84188. The organisers say that texts will be charged at the normal operators’ rate, and there’s no extra charge. Full details here.