Michael Schumacher insists that he will make a decision on whether to extend his F1 in October.

Schumacher came out of retirement at the start of the 2010 season in a three-year deal with Mercedes although the seven-time champion has only managed one podium finish – in Valencia this year – since making his comeback.

The future of the German driver has been a hot topic of discussion in recent months, with both team and driver still to take a decision on whether to continue with their agreement for another year.

Speaking ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, Schumacher insisted that the decision would be made by October and that there was currently no further news to add.

“I think we made a very clear statement some time ago that by October we will be able to give an indication and nothing has changed since then, so no news I'm afraid,” Schumacher, who celebrates his 300th race this weekend, said. “How many it [his career] will be in the end? We will have to find out. Don't know yet. Certainly go to the end of the season.”

Speculation about Schumacher's future has only increased after a difficult season in 2012, where a myriad of issues have left him down in twelfth place in the standings – with six retirements in eleven races.

However, the 43-year-old insisted that his challenging campaign was one of those things that can happen in motorsport and said he had total faith in his team when it comes to turning things around over the remainder of the season.

“You have those moments when things do run against you and I have mentioned that at any time I have full trust in the guys because they all do their utmost,” he said. “Nobody wants to retire, everybody does their best job but then we have prototype cars and unfortunately things like this do happen. I don't mind too much about this, because I was aware, reasonably early in the season, that we wouldn't be fighting for the championship so to retire is not a big deal for me at that moment, not being in the championship anyway. Much more important is that if you would be in the championship, then it would obviously bother me much more.

“I look forward to the rest of the season. We still have a lot to go through and a lot to improve on, a lot to understand. The team is pushing hard to go forward in order to make our process a much more reasonable step forward compared to what we have been doing. Already we have achieved quite a bit more but I think it needs a bit more of that. And then reliability.”

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