Schu, Shell and Renault

(GMM) Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport has published photographs of retiring Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher filming an advertisement — featuring a Renault car.

37-year-old Schumacher, albeit in a pair of red overalls, was snapped by 21-year-old amateur photographer Flavio Tornisello in a local Italian Shell petrol station whilst standing near a Megane model Renault.

Deepening Tornisello's suspicions of some sort of future tie-up between Schumacher, Shell and Renault was the appearance also of a Nissan road car, whose parent company is Renault.

Also curiously, Renault's lubricants partner in F1 is Elf, not Shell.

Elsewhere in the press, it is being reported that Bernie Ecclestone has signed a multi-season grand prix contract with South Korea, to commence in 2010.

The agreement is scheduled to be made official on 2 October.