Michael Schumacher has been pipped at the post in the race to be the world’s richest sportsman.

According to the Sunday Times’ annual listings, the seven time world champion’s (US) $823 million in career earnings is beaten only by golf legend Tiger Woods.

American Woods has earned $869 million in his own ultra-successful career, the newspaper found.

And the Sunday Times said the pair have each earned hundreds of millions of dollars more than other high-earning sportsmen, including Michael Jordan ($516m), Roger Federer ($316m) and David Beckham ($258m).

F1′s two other representatives, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen, were way down the top-twenty list, with their respective earnings at about $161 million apiece.

McLaren’s world champions Lewis Hamilton ($89m) and Jenson Button ($85m), meanwhile, appear only on the list for British sportsmen, and they are both outpaced by the $129m earned by former Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine mainly through property investment.

However, Hamilton and Button have each earned more in their careers than David Coulthard, Nigel Mansell, former BAR boss David Richards (all $80m) and Sir Jackie Stewart ($67m).

Those earnings, however, are all dwarfed by Bernie Ecclestone’s estimated $4 billion, although the 81-year-old F1 chief executive does not appear at all on the list of the world’s richest overall.

That list is headed by mega-earners like Sauber sponsor Carlos Slim, who according to the Sunday Times is worth $71 billion.

F1 indulged in a piece of rare nostalgia on Thursday by recreating a famous scene.

As the 1986 world championship fight came to a head in Adelaide, the four title protagonists – Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet – posed on the pitwall with Bernie Ecclestone for a media photograph.

Two and a half decades later, there are still five drivers in the running for the 2010 crown, so the ever-present F1 chief executive was back on the pitwall for the same sort of photograph.

This time, the scene of the photo – featuring Ecclestone and drivers Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Mark Webber, Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel – was the brand new Yeongam barrier.

“It was good to do the photo with all the guys,” championship leader Webber said afterwards, “going back all those years with some of our heroes obviously in those (1986) photos.”

1992 world champion Nigel Mansell will be the driver-representative in the FIA stewards’ room this weekend at Silverstone.

Before retiring in 1995, the 1992 world champion won the British grand prix four times (1986-7 and 1991-2).

In 2008, countryman Lewis Hamilton won at Silverstone on the way to his own sole title.

“Nigel Mansell used to say he’d gain half a second a lap at Silverstone just down to the support of the crowd,” said the McLaren driver.

“I’m not so sure about that because you’re always on the limit. But you do get an extra couple of tenths of a second just by your natural feeling out there,” said Hamilton this week.

Mansell, now 56 and minus his famous moustache, contested 191 grands prix and won 31 times for Williams and Ferrari.

Jenson Button is at his home race never stood on the podium. Last year, the 30-year-old was leading the championship and as the clear favorite to Silverstone. In the race, finally gave it only to a disappointing sixth place. The best result in 2004 he took fourth. As McLaren has many improvements in the luggage, Button now wants the big triumph.

“I have triumphed in Monaco and won the World Cup. I lack only the victory in my home,” is the two-season winner of ‘ESPN’ quoted. “Everyone wants to win, of course, the home race. The British Grand Prix is something special, since in this region are many teams and many fans come year after year.”
His team mate Lewis Hamilton is also hot on a home triumph. Two double victory celebrated the chrome arrows in this season. In the UK, which is in 45 years, however, happened only once. 1999 saw David Coulthard (McLaren) to the checkered flag in front of Eddie Irvine (Ferrari). This day is mainly with the broken leg of Michael Schumacher remembered.

In the duel approached his stall colleagues said Button: “Lewis is very fast and there is a good competition between us. In the last race he has come before me to the finish, if only just ahead of me. I want to win at Silverstone Lewis as well. He does not think differently than I do. We will just go out there and have fun. Hopefully one of us wins. ”

Button feel pressure to succeed after the departure of the “Three Lions” is not in the World Cup. “Lewis and I have achieved a lot in our sport,” said Button. “We have pressure from outside and from within usual. I do not feel more at Silverstone under pressure, at least I feel it.”
Around the British tradition of track fans in the past have been held much spectacle. Unforgettable is the Mansell-mania in the early nineties, when the red number five was dominated by Williams. After 1987 Nigel Mansell 1991 and 1992 was also celebrated as the winner. After Damon Hill a year later had to retire due to an engine failure on the way to his debut triumph, he finally went in 1994 with the Union Jack as the winner down lap.

Now it is the British Dream Team Button and Hamilton to inspire the fans. “I am very excited and look forward to the many spectators with the British flag in the stands,” said the reigning world champion. “It is a very special Grand Prix. I think this year will be even better for a long time. I want to see not only a British winner, I want to win themselves.”

Nigel Mansell has confirmed he will be the FIA steward on duty at next month’s British grand prix.

We revealed in April that the 1992 world champion would sit alongside the three standard formula one stewards at Silverstone, as FIA president Jean Todt’s new initiative continues.

So far this season, famous former drivers including Mansell’s fellow champions Emerson Fittipaldi, Damon Hill and Alain Prost have been full fourth stewards at grands prix.

Briton Mansell, 56, confirmed in an interview with the Daily Mail newspaper that the reports about his Silverstone duties were true.

He has been confined to bed for the last week after his crash at the start of the recent 24 hour Le Mans race, in which his two sons were also due to compete.

Mansell also moved to clarify his comments of last month, when Lewis Hamilton was dismissed as a “manufactured” driver unfairly advantaged by McLaren’s long-term investment in his career.

“I am glad Lewis was the pioneer, and not someone from overseas,” said the winner of 31 grands prix.

“But it had never happened before and, subsequently, formula one teams are now looking to sign kids from karting.

“This is going to make it harder, in future, for drivers in other categories to get a seat in formula one,” explained Mansell.

(GMM)

Lewis Hamilton on Saturday hit back at Nigel Mansell, after his fellow British world champion dismissed him as a “manufactured” driver.

1992 title winner Mansell is quoted as criticising the fact that some drivers like Hamilton are backed as karters from a young age, disadvantaging those who cannot secure such lucrative support.

“How many people from seven years of age have been given 2.5 million pounds to go karting?” he said.

Mansell, 56, also said Hamilton “didn’t handle” the tough times in his F1 career so far because it was “the first time ever in his life he’s had a tough time”.

After qualifying on the front row in Turkey, three tenths faster than his teammate and reigning world champion Jenson Button, Hamilton was unimpressed when he heard about Mansell’s comments.

“Clearly Nigel either has not been reading the right stories or he has not got his facts right,” said the McLaren driver.

“I was not signed up until I was 13 so I would love to see where the rest of that money was since I was seven,” added Hamilton, insisting that until he was signed by McLaren, his parents did it tough financially.

“I wouldn’t have expected that from him but that’s the way it is.”

And team boss Martin Whitmarsh added: “I just hope that Nigel is being misquoted. It often happens apparently.”

(GMM)

Johnny Herbert will this weekend once again act as F1′s driver steward.

The 45-year-old Briton, who won three grands prix during his career spanning 165 races until 2000, debuted in the role in Malaysia.

Since the 2010 season opener, former drivers including Alain Prost, Alex Wurz, Derek Warwick and Damon Hill have also served alongside the three regular stewards.

But former Benetton, Tyrrell, Lotus, Ligier, Sauber, Stewart and Jaguar driver Herbert is the first driver to officiate at more than one grand prix.

Also touted to appear in 2010 are Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Mika Salo and Nigel Mansell.

(GMM)

Three years after the ‘spygate’ scandal of 2007, a case alleging sabotage by espionage conspirator Nigel Stepney began in Italy on Wednesday.

As the Monaco paddock is set up on Wednesday, the case harks back to the fabled street race of 2007, with sacked former chief mechanic Stepney accused of trying to ruin Ferrari’s chances by adding white powder to the fuel tanks.

According to reports including by the ANSA news agency, the trial began on Wednesday in a court in Sassuolo, in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region.

Briton Stepney did not appear in person, the German news agency SID reported.