Sunday, October 29th: It was three in the afternoon as Michael passed the finish line at Monza for the last time in his Formula One Ferrari, and 45.000 tifosi celebrated him. The record-holding world champion was given a very warm welcome at the Finali Mondiali, Ferrari's traditional end-of-year party. "The fans were always supportive, especially during hard times, and that helped us all," Michael stated, noticing all the posters fans had brought for him. President Luca di Montezemolo, Ferrari's Business manager Jean Todt and Michael Schumacher spoke at a press conference, which was also a goodbye event for Ross Brawn, and told us what their future plans were. "I'm looking forward to continuing working with Ferrari. The friendship within our team has always been very unique, so it's obvious that continuing along this path makes sense. We will take our time and find out what exactly I'll be doing.
I'll take on the role of some sort of an advisor, for instance in the area of development of the street cars or working with young drivers, but we haven't completely decided. First of all I'd like to take a break now. The last sixteen years of my life have been completely organized and planned out, so now I'd just like to go with the flow for a while. And after a while I'll know what I will be doing with Ferrari - it's going to be about what's important for Ferrari and how I can help them. Ferrari has always given me the freedom to take my time in deciding things, and that's how it's going to be this time as well. But I would like to thank everyone that has helped me to experience my amazing career." And at the circuit, to the fans, he said, "You are the best present that I've ever received. Without you, we couldn't have done it."
