Autoblog

While Villeneuve and Montoya are adapting well to their new home in NASCAR, their German-speaking former colleagues might be headed to their own sedan-based racing series at home.

Reports indicate that, against the advice of his older brother, Ralf Schumacher climbed into the cabin of a Mercedes C-Class DTM race car for a trial test at the Estoril track on Tuesday.

Austrian driver Christian Klien, who was passed over for the last seat at Force India in favor of Giancarlo Fisichella, is believed to have also participated in the test. The Mercedes-AMG team in the popular German touring car series recently suffered the loss of Mika Hakkinen, and is tipped to be eager to replace him with another big F1 name.

[Source: Autosport]

With the 2007 season of Formula One racing now neatly tied up, the last few remaining seats for next year are filling up fast.

Following Mercedes' release of Fernando Alonso from his contract with McLaren and his earlier reported letter of intent with Renault where he won his two world titles, Alonso looks all but completely assured to be leaving McLaren a season early. That leaves McLaren with an open seat, and few available drivers to fill it.

The question no one seems to be asking is who will fill Alonso's seat at the British team next year. Never shying away from the difficult questions, Autoblog looks at the different options available for McLaren for 2008. Follow the jump to read more.

[Photo: Mark Thompson/Getty]

McLaren has finally revealed their second driver for the upcoming 2007 Formula One season: Lewis Hamilton will be racing alongside world champion Fernando Alonso, who leaves Renault to join McLaren this season.

Hamilton has been a personal protégé of McLaren chief Ron Dennis since the young driver was thirteen. Lewis won the GP2 title this year, and in moving into the race seat skips right over the test-driver faze. Of course this means a disappointed Pedro de la Rosa will return to his role as test driver after having filled in for Juan Pablo Montoya this past season. The second implication is that the rumors of Mika Hakkinen's return to F1 in a McLaren for the 2007 season turn out not to be true.

There'll certainly be a lot of eyes on Lewis as he makes his landmark debut in F1 racing for a leading team. Nice work if you can get it.

[Source: GrandPrix.com]

Nothing gets the sporting press as excited as the prospect of a former champion coming out of retirement. When it's a race driver, the motoring press jumps on it too. So it's no surprise, then, that the rumors of Mika Hakkinen's purported return to Formula One have been spreading like margarine.

The Finnish driver (please, no finish-line jokes) won the title two years running in '98 and '99 behind the wheel of a McLaren, before retiring in 2001. He began driving again for Mercedes-Benz (McLaren's engine partner) in DTM (German touring cars), but Hakkinen's been seen getting in and out of the cockpit of McLaren formula race cars several times this year, leading to speculation that he could be coming back to drive for McLaren.

The rumors could very well be true. McLaren's two drivers have both left the team: Kimi Raikkonen (another talented Finnish driver) to Ferrari and Juan Pablo Montoya for NASCAR. World champ Fernando Alonso joins the McLaren line-up for next year, but the team has yet to announce their second driver. Test driver Pedro de la Rosa could get the job; so could protégé Lewis Hamilton. But some have speculated that McLaren chief Ron Dennis would rather go with a tested-and-true champion like Hakkinen. (Another interesting piece to the puzzle is Hakkinen's recent appointment by McLaren sponsor Johnnie Walker as its ambassador for responsible driving.)

Mika and Ron are known to have stayed close even after Hakkinen's retirement, opening the door to a number of alternative explanations: Mika might have simply gotten the urge to drive an F1 car again, for nostalgia. Ron might have asked Mika to give his old team some developmental feedback on the car while they wait for Alonso to be released from his Renault contract. Or maybe, just maybe, Dennis is trying to keep Pedro and Lewis on their toes with the mere suggestion that neither one of them is guaranteed the seat (and doing a damn fine job at it, too).

Hakkinen might be pushing 38, but he was widely regarded as Schumacher's greatest rival (including by Michael himself). And who knows what Mika might accomplish with Schumi now retired.

[Source: GrandPrix.com]