F1: Schamacher confirmed as Mercedes number one

Up and down the pit lane, sponsors will be tearing their hair out. Media favourites Ferrari will still get more attention than any other team; and Schumacher will mop up more coverage than any other driver.

As we reported yesterday, this is excellent news for Mercedes title sponsor Petronas.

For all the new teams, it's the worst thing that could happen.

Michael Schumacher says "MERCEDES GP PETRONAS represents a new challenge for me both in a sporting and a personal context. It is a new chapter in my racing career and I am really looking forward to working with my old friend Ross Brawn and my companions from my days with the Mercedes Junior Programme. I am convinced that together we will be involved in the fight for the Formula 1 World Championship next year and I am already looking forward to getting back onto the race track. For me, this partnership closes the circle. Mercedes supported me for so many years when I began my Formula 1 career and now I can hopefully give something back to the brand with the star."

But publicity is the life-blood of racing teams, and lack of it can be the death of them. While Ferrari will bathe in the MS halo effect - with many re-runs of his previous successes in their cars - Mercedes will gain from current association.

For sure, if Schumacher is as fast as we all hope he will be, then he will shake up the top of the grid. But it will still be Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren and Red Bull up at the pointy end, so from the team's point of view, he's not adding a lot of driver value unless he wins races and, ultimately, the championship.

Make no mistake, though: he is not getting this drive out of some misguided sense of friendship from Ross Brawn and Norbert Hauser, despite their almost puke-inducing comments at the announcement. Both of them know exactly what they are getting: there is, simply, no bigger name to gather publicity for the new Mercedes team.

No one is talking about the length of the contract: it's bound to be for the whole season - it is unthinkable that MS would have agreed to a race by race contract.But his value will be squandered if he's not winning races - or behaving badly - after six months.

But whether there is still value in him after one season remains to be seen. No one seriously doubts his commitment, and no one seriously doubts his will to win nor his fitness.

And with his old pal Jean Todt now esconsed at the FIA, his on-track misbehaviour is unlikely to be sanctioned; whether stewards are warned off or told to give him some leeway as he re-learns racing at the highest level remains to be seen.

Some think that MS is back because Button left Brawn; others think Button left because he suspected that the delay in signing his deal was due to negotiations with Schumacher and there was no way he wanted to be in the same team.

For despite Button's status as current world champion, and his entitlement to the number one on his car, he would have been in no doubt that his number one position at the team would have evaporated.

And with both Red Bull and Ferrari having locked down their teams, there was only one seat worth of Button's talent - and his cherished number plate.

For Button will keep the number one and deny Brawn-Mercedes the chance to wear it next year, despite the FIA's ruling that Mercedes is a successor team to Brawn.

It means that Mercedes get the priority in the pit lane, and McLaren as runners up are right behind them.

Button keeps his number 1 and, historically, that means that the number 2 will stay with Brawn and their other driver will be carry the number zero; Hamilton, then, will probably get number 4, number 3 having been superseded by Button's number 1.

That would leave the Red Bulls with numbers 5 and 6 with the rest of the field in sequence - until we reach the new teams, including Sauber.

But who knows what the FIA will eventually decide as to race numbers. They fiddled around with them until the weekend of the first race in 2009, with Brawn and Force India both claiming the same numbers at one point.

It could all become rather confusing.