How the wheel has turned in Formula One.

Not so many years ago Michael Schumacher was winning most of the races and had a mortgage on the world championship.

Mark Webber was an Aussie battler, often not getting beyond the first lap, rarely finishing and only occasionally collecting championship points.

The bloke from Queanbeyan was quick, especially on a qualifying lap.

He generally outperformed his teammates, but his results hardly pointed to a long - and successful - career.

Webber hasn't yet reached the heights that Schumacher scaled seven times, but as the F1 "circus" heads to Germany for the 11th round of this year's world championship it is the once great one whose career is on the ropes.

Schumacher came back to F1 this season at 41 and after a three-year lay-off.

Not with Ferrari, with whom he had won five of his world titles, but Mercedes, the German manufacturer that had supported him in his youth, saw him blossom elsewhere and dreamt of them finally working - and winning - together in F1.

Schumacher's performances this year, by the standards he set from the early 1990s to the mid-noughties, have been massively underwhelming.

He's usually beaten, sometimes whipped, by his 25-year-old teammate Nico Rosberg.

Schumacher's 36 points from the first 10 rounds of the championship - only two of them from the past three races - are little more than a third of Rosberg's 90.

Schumacher is only ninth in the championship, Rosberg sixth.

Mercedes took over the team that won the world title last year as BrawnGP, but its car has not been a match for Red Bulls of Webber and Sebastian Vettel, the McLarens - still powered by Mercedes - of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, the Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and sometimes Felipe Massa, or even the Renault in the hands of Poland's Robert Kubica.

Schumacher has not been seen on the podium this year. Two fourth places have been his best finishes.

What has cruelled him is the ban on testing between races.

In days gone by, and with Ferrari's resources (including its own Fiorano test track), Schumacher thrashed machinery relentlessly, developing not only the fastest but the most reliable cars in the sport.

All that testing has been outlawed for the sake of cutting some of F1's exorbitant costs.

While Schumacher will get a huge welcome home from the German fans at Hockenheim this weekend, his comeback is on the ropes.

F1 ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone, Schumacher's biggest fan, and triple world champion and former team owner Sir Jackie Stewart doubt he will race beyond this season, even though he has two more years on his contract.

Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug insists he will go on.

It will need a much improved Mercedes car to keep Schumacher keen.

He won't enjoy tarnishing his incomparable statistics any further.

It's now almost 10 days since the British Grand Prix and the storm within the Red Bull team in which Webber won it, yet that has remained the subject of massive international attention.

The air has supposedly been cleared over any preferential treatment to be given by that team to its drivers - that it will be simply on the basis of which is higher in the championship at the time.

That means Webber this weekend, on Vettel's home tarmac.

A rather curious statement was issued by Webber in the middle of last week.

However, the words apology or sorry don't appear in that statement.

On the contrary, Webber has flexed his new muscle within the team these past few days.

His theme has been that, if given the right machinery - and even if not the best - he can do the job, and not to mess with him.

The man feeling the most heat will be Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, whose mistake was not to inform Webber directly and promptly before qualifying at the British GP why the front of his car was being given to Vettel.

The division within the Red Bull camp, and among those watching it most intently, has been largely along language lines, but with Englishman Horner seemingly in the camp of the German speakers - the most influential of whom pay his wages.

But now the German speakers are splintering.

Hans Stuck, a German former F1 driver, called Red Bull's treatment of Webber in Britain an "absolute outrage".

"Whoever decided to take the new wing away from Webber qualified for his final pension," Stuck told the TZ newspaper.

"Christian Horner is just a puppet."

Stuck said all the strings were being pulled for Red Bull energy drink tycoon Dietrich Mateschitz by his fellow Austrian Helmut Marko, another ex-F1 driver and now his motorsport adviser.

Stuck said the team needed a new principal, and the man he recommended was Franz Tost, the introverted but ruthless Austrian running Red Bull's smaller sister team, Scuderia Toro Rosso - the former Minardi.

Stuck's importance is not his F1 racing experience but that he is now the motorport boss of Volkswagen, the giant German car group that one day might just decide to get into F1 - and which would be a logical partner for Red Bull Racing.

Little is ever heard from Mateschitz - he makes his billions working three days a week - and Marko appeared for a while to have bitten his lip after the earlier controversy at the Turkish GP, where Vettel and Webber collided.

But now Marko has surfaced, suggesting that conspiracy theorists would think the team had favoured Webber rather than wunderkind Vettel.

"Which car has permanently had something damaged," Marko said.

"Did Mark have the defective spark plug in Bahrain, the loose wheel in Australia, the broken brake disc in Barcelona, the defective chassis in Monte Carlo, the transmission problems in Montreal and now the broken wing at Silverstone?"

Vettel has tried to take the high moral ground, saying that the infighting should have been kept behind the team's closed doors.

That would have been respectful and in line with his upbringing, he said.

A little curious all that, in light of the way Vettel twirled his finger in Turkey, telling the world he thought Webber was crazy.

The Germans may not like some of Webber's ways, especially his Australian frankness, but his position within the team has only been strengthened of late.

He can see the big prize at the end of the season and he's going to go for it.

Webber is adamant that he and Vettel can still work together professionally in the best interests of the team, and in toppling McLaren - but his statements are laced with a warning.

"Things could become more tense between us," Webber said.

Formula One drivers' world championship after 10 of 19 rounds:

Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain, McLaren-Mercedes) 145 points, Jenson Button (Great Britain, McLaren-Mercedes) 133, Mark Webber (Australia, Red Bull-Renault) 128, Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Red Bull-Renault) 121, Fernando Alonso (Spain, Ferrari) 98, Nico Rosberg (Germany, Mercedes) 90, Robert Kubica (Poland, Renault) 83, Felipe Massa (Brazil, Ferrari 67, Michael Schumacher (Germany, Mercedes) 36, Adrian Sutil (Germany, Force India-Mercedes) 35, Rubens Barrichello (Brazil, Williams-Cosworth) 29, Kamui Kobayashi (Japan, Sauber-Ferrari) 15, Vitantonio Liuzzi (Italy, Force India-Mercedes) 12, Sebastien Buemi (Switzeraldn, Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 7. Vitaly Petrov (Russia, Renault) 6, Jaimie Alguersuari (Spain) Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari 3, Nico Hulkenberg (Germany, Williams-Cosworth) 2.

F1 constructors' championship:

McLaren 278 points, Red Bull Racing-Renault 249, Ferrari 165, Mercedes 126, Renault 89, Force India-Mercedes 47, Williams-Cosworth 31, Sauber-Ferrari 15, Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari 10.