Formula One's resident neurosurgeon, Professor Sid Watkins, has warned
Ralf Schumacher against making an early return to action, claiming that another accident could threaten the German with more permanent injuries.
Williams driver Schumacher has missed the last two grands prix, in France and Britain, after crashing heavily during the USGP at Indianapolis, and will also sit out his home round this weekend. Although doctors in Germany have told him that recovery from the two spinal fractures he suffered at Indy could take as long as twelve weeks, Schumacher and his management team have insisted that he will be ready to return to the cockpit as early as the Hungarian or Belgian races next month.
Watkins, however, advises otherwise, particularly as Schumacher struggled to comeback from a similar jarring accident prior to last year's Italian GP. On that occasion, concussion sustained in a testing roll days before the meeting, returned to cause problems during Friday free practice, and led to the German being replaced by Marc Gene.
"Ralf must make sure he is fully recovered, and rule out the chance of suffering side effects from the crash," he told Britain's
Daily Telegraph newspaper, "He has had two very similar impacts in the last year, and the effect if he returned before he was fully fit could be the same as you see in a boxer. A secondary impact syndrome threatens, and that could mean that vibrations lead to the brain swelling and, in the worst-case scenario, death."
Antonio Pizzonia will replace Gene as Schumacher's stand-in at Hockenheim this weekend, after the Spaniard failed to score points on either of his outings at Magny-Cours and
Silverstone.
