Michael Schumacher’s torrid race weekend?one during which he will start the Japanese Grand Prix with a 10-place penalty on the grid?continued on Friday when he lost control of his Mercedes AMG while turning into a corner, sliding wheels over the grass and damaging its front wing. The events surrounding Formula One?s most successful driver during the second practice session at the Suzuka circuit, after which he accepted his driving error but also said that the car ?was not ready for the start? as the mechanics were making minor changes to the set-up, was a microcosm of his unsuccessful comeback to Formula One, in its third and what is now confirmed final year.

Schumacher?s decision to retire at the end of the current Formula One season was undoubtedly precipitated by his Mercedes team?s announcement of the signing up of McLaren?s Lewis Hamilton?the 2008 world champion. Hamilton at 27 is 16 years junior to Schumacher and the struggling Mercedes team, a brilliant road car manufacturer, seem to have put their faith in the Briton.

While Hamilton?s move to Mercedes is a coup, given that his talent has been nurtured by McLaren for over a decade since his days as a young go-kart driver, it does not guarantee the three-pointed star outfit success that they so desperately crave for since returning to the sport after buying over the Brawn GP team in 2010.

For Schumacher to find success in his comeback two seasons ago, after retiring in 2006, was always going to be tough. Yet one podium finish and one pole position?both earned this year?will be considered below-par for a seven-time world champion who has a record 91 wins to his name.

Sportsmen, more so those whose records at their pomp gave them an aura of invincibility, have often made the wrong call of coming out of retirement fuelled by their belief that they they are still good enough. Multiple tennis Grand Slam champion Bjorn Borg, basketball star Michael Jordan, heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, to name a few have met with little success on return. Of these, Borg in his comeback played with a wooden racquet similar to the one with which he lifted 11 Grand Slam titles but failed to win first round matches against average players.

Borg to an extent paid the price for not making use of the best available graphite equipment, while Schumacher, in an extremely technology-driven sport, has had to drive with a car put together by a team that is yet to reach its full potential.

Schumacher?s return to the track has been a failure when compared to his first stint, where he won seven titles, five of them in a row. But in a sport where machine plays as big a role as the man behind the wheel, it will be harsh to write off his stint with Mercedes GP as a outright disaster.

Sample this: Schumacher?s German teammate Nico Rosberg, son of 1982 Formula One champion Keke Rosberg, has won just one race?the 2012 Chinese Grand Prix since joining the new Mercedes outfit and on five other occasions ended up on the podium. Schumacher has one podium finish?a third place at the European Grand Prix this year and one pole. While these results show that Rosberg has been the better driver, there isn?t much to chose between the two as the younger German?s seventh place finishes in the previous two seasons do compare well with Schumacher?s ninth and eight spots in the driver?s standings in a car that has had its share of technical problems. Also, at 43, Schumacher is still breaking records.

Being on the podium (third-place finish) at the Valencia Street Circuit made him the oldest driver in over four decades to finish in the top-three of a Grand Prix. At the Belgian Grand Prix earlier this year, he became only the second driver to have 300 Grand Prix starts after Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, a former teammate at Ferrari.

If there was an early indication that Schumacher had not lost any of his enthusiasm for racing on his return to the sport, it came at the 2010 Belgian Grand Prix when he squeezed Barrichello, driving a Williams, almost into the wall when racing at 305 kilometres per hour in order to defend his 10th place. This was typical Schumacher; ruthless and with a ?win-at-any-cost? attitude, which combined with his terrific driving skill and derring-do took him and Ferrari to unprecedented heights.

However, the Mercedes wasn?t a patch on the championship-winning Ferrari of the 2000s and Schumacher, in an average car and not at the peak of his powers, was destined to finish among the also-rans. Even Mercedes? Ross Brawn, the technical wizard, who was at Schumacher?s side when he won all his seven titles, has not been able to change the fortunes of Mercedes or the man he referred to earlier this week as ?the greatest driver of this century?.

?It is without doubt we did not achieve our goals to develop a world championship-fighting car,? Schumacher had said when he announced his retirement on Thursday. That task will fall on Hamilton now.

Brawn will hope that the mercurial Briton will prove to be the right choice, along with Rosberg, to take Mercedes to the pinnacle by the time new engine regulations set to be introduced in 2014 will shake up the sport.