TWO years after he announced his retirement from Formula One, Michael Schumacher has revealed he did it for Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa.

'I stopped because I didn't want my friend Felipe Massa to be unemployed,' the Swiss newspaper Blick quotes the German driver as saying.

It had been thought at that time that Schumacher had been reluctant to have Kimi Raikkonen as a team-mate and suffer the embarrassment of having the Flying Finn outperform him, but the German seven-time world champion denies this was the case.

'I would have had no problem going up against Kimi Raikkonen,' Schumacher adds, refuting the common claim.

Massa and Raikkonen, currently equal on points along with Lewis Hamilton in this year's championship standings, make up Ferrari's current race line-up.

More than a year on from his retirement from Formula One, Schumacher - the most successful driver in the sport's history - has insisted that he left his drive at Ferrari to save the career of his team-mate and friend Massa.

Schumacher claimed an unrivalled 91 victories, 154 podium finishes, 68 pole positions and 1,369 points before hanging his F1 helmet at the end of his 16th season in 2006.

CONSULTANT

Schumacher's presence should be felt throughout the forthcoming German Grand Prix weekend - around a circuit at which he triumphed on four occasions during his career - fulfilling his role as a special consultant to the Scuderia.

The outing will mark only his second paddock visit of the season. He last made a paddock appearance in Barcelona almost three months ago, and will also play football for the F1 drivers' team tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the alternating agreement that currently sees the German Grand Prix shared between 2008 home Hockenheim and the Nurburgring looks set to continue until at least 2011, when the scheme is fixed to end.

The move was made as more and more countries clamour for the right to host Formula One races, making it more difficult to justify Germany having two seasonal slots on the calendar, as had been the case in 2006 and a number years prior to that.

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