COLOGNE, Germany — Michael Schumacher and Ferrari have firmed up just what he will do for Ferrari, and it does not include  racing in 2008.
Asked if he would consider making a comeback, Schumi replied: “No, not possible.”
He was speaking to reporters at Ferrari’s annual ski retreat in Italy.
So what will he do?
“I’m a consultant,” the 39-year-old said. “I help develop the road cars which is a lot of fun, and obviously advise the F-1 team.”
Schumacher does attend some of the team’s technical debriefings.
“I have to be there and, from time to time, translate the results,” he said. “From time to time, me and the team need to come together. I feel I have good input to better understand what the drivers are saying.”

• Lewis Hamilton says McLaren has put all the 2007 troubles behind them.
“I believe that it is a fresh start for all of us,” he said. “We’ve turned over a new leaf and, with the experience of last year, I do feel even stronger. I can’t wait to test the car and get to the first race.”

• Force India has confirmed that Giancarlo Fisichella will partner Adrian Sutil next year as a paid driver. Tonio Liuzzi will be the test/reserve driver.

• Having lost out in his bid to drive for Force India, Christian Klien says he will now seek racing opportunities outside F-1.

• Although he retired from F-1 racing last season, Alex Wurz isn’t ready to give it all up just yet. He has signed on as Honda’s test/reserve driver for this season.

• Three of the new F-1 cars were on the track last week in private tests: Ferrari at Fiorano, McLaren at Jerez and BMW Sauber at Valencia. Just about all the teams will be in action at Jerez this week.

• The teams met with the FIA in Paris last week to discuss the latest cost-cutting ideas.
Jarno Trulli hopes the new Toyota TF108 is, as predicted, a major step forward compared to the unloved TF107.
“This car is very different from the one of the past season, so we expect a much better performance,” he said. “Once we are at the track and we start performing on it, we will get a clearer idea of what the car performance will be. The engineers have been working really hard, and they are very confident that they have made a big step forward. So I just hope we will have this step on the track.”

• Timo Glock is looking for an apartment in the Cologne suburb where Toyota’s F-1 team is based. Thus, when he is home, he can pop in to visit the team.

• Watchmaker Oris has renewed and increased its sponsorship agreement with Williams for the next three years.

• Although Ron Dennis kept a very low profile at the McLaren launch, letting Martin Whitmarsh and Norbert Haug handle the press conferences, Dennis said no decisions have been made about the F-1 team’s future management line-up.

• Timo Glock reckons fellow Champ Car driver Sebastien Bourdais will do well in F-1. “At the tests he did a pretty good job and he has a lot of experience in F3000, Champ Car and Sports Cars,” Glock said. “So he should have enough experience to adapt to F-1 quite quickly. He will be quite good in his first year.”