Personal sponsor ends Schumacher deal

One of Michael Schumacher's personal sponsors is ending its deal with the embattled F1 legend.

For years, advertising campaigns for the bottled mineral water brand Rosbacher have regularly featured a bare-chested Schumacher in various sporting poses.

Earlier this month, as the seven time world champion remained in intensive care in the wake of his late December skiing fall, parent company Hassia Gruppe's chief Dirk Hinkel said he continued to back Schumacher.

"We remain committed to him and his family," he said, "and send him our best wishes."

Hinkel said at the same time that the more than eight year collaboration with Schumacher had led to "a much higher awareness" of the Rosbacher brand.

But the Swiss Sunday newspaper Sonntagsblick reports that Hinkel has apparently had a change of heart.

Just as it emerges that Schumacher has left intensive care in France and transferred to a Swiss rehabilitation hospital, the report claimed the great 45-year-old's Rosbacher contract will not be extended beyond 2014.

"After that," a spokeswoman confirmed, "our advertising will be with the product alone."

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Leopold

Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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