Every night we wake up in cold sweat, hands clutching and clicking the remote, surfing cable channels desperately for a fix of F1 news, or anything remotely concerning the most exciting open-wheel racing in the world.

With nothing on cable, we crawl to the computer while thanking the gods for the Internet and PLDT myDSL. If not for the Internet and F1 websites, we don’t think we could survive the hell that is the F1 off-season.

Hands trembling we grasp and shake the mouse to wake our hibernating HP desktop PC. Seconds pass by like hours as we wait for the 17-inch flat screen monitor to light up to our home page: http:www.formula1.com.

And there it was: The news about Tifosi lord and master Michael Schumacher — "thinking the unthinkable."

Woe unto the Tifosi-Ferrari faithful praying for 2006 to be a year of redemption for the disaster that was 2005. Lord Michael is thinking about moving to another team!

That can’t be true. But there it is on the official Formula 1 website.

"I said that at mid-season I will decide if I want to go on or not go on, and 99 percent I do this with Ferrari if I go on, I should say 99.9," the website quoted Michael as telling the press at Ferrari’s annual ski meeting.

What the hoy! First Michael says he may be retiring if Ferrari can’t come up with a competitive car this season and then hinting at moving to another team. That’s blasphemy even coming from Michael.

Well, we take that to mean Michael wants to end his career on a winning note and if Ferrari can’t give him a horse that can prance to the podium and the championship, he’ll find a team that can.

He is, after all, 37, the oldest and by most estimates still the best driver around.

To F1 junkies, the grid would look strange with Michael in another car other than a red Ferrari after being with the team for almost a decade and after winning 6 constructors’ and five drivers’ titles.

To the Tifosi, it will be like being forsaken by a god they’ve been worshipping for so long.

The Tifosi will be waiting with bated breath for the F2005’s successor which Ferrari will be testing at the end of this month as the website also reports.

Yet unnamed, the car which will decide when and where Michael will end his career will be launched at the International Mugello Circuit near Florence in Italy on January 24. It’s not the launch that will be watched closely by the Tifosi but the car’s track debut on the same day.

Will it be the steed of redemption for Michael and Ferrari?

We’ll see on our next F1 fix?