The 38-year-old Italian started 49 races for Scuderia Italia, Minardi and Forti without scoring a point between 1993 and 1999.

Austria's former world champion Niki Lauda went so far as to describe the turn of events as "a disaster" because his replacement, Ferrari's current test driver Badoer, is currently well off the pace in terms of racing in Formula One.

Niki Lauder, former F1 champion said:"It's a disaster for Ferrari, because if (Luca) Badoer will drive, and he should be the driver now, then he is half a second slower than Kimi (Raikkonen). This means, I would say, that effectively Ferrari starts with one car only. Certainly, the second driver is racing as well, but he cannot drive as fast as Raikkonen."

In Schumacher's home town of Kerpen, near Cologne, the cart track that bears his name saw a steady flow of crestfallen fans come and go on Tuesday.

"This won't be without reason. People say, that he's still suffering a neck injury due to his motorcycling accident. He quit from sports on the top of his career and I think for him personally it will very likely be better this way."

"It's a great pity. A lot of people were looking forward to it. Me too. Would have been a reason to watch Formula 1 racing again. To tell the truth, I did not very often watch the races, since he was gone."

In a time of budgetary restraint and contraction throughout the sport, Schumacher would have provided some much-needed "pizazz".

Now they will have to carry on without one of the biggest names F1 has seen - again.