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[TechniqueFreak]

And by the way, I can't believe some people are still pulling the line that the guy won 7 (SEVEN) titles because he somehow lucked into good cars.

I don't think anybody is saying that Schumacher lucked his way into good cars. The guy clearly had a lot of talent, but the idea that Schumacher was single-handedly responsible for Ferrari's upturn in form is equally nonsense. As I've said before on this thread, the very best drivers can work their magic and achieve some great results, but won't be a serious title contender without a good team. Finally, although I generally agree with you that Schumacher did win a lot of races with inferior cars, I would dispute some of your dates, namely 1994 and 2003. I would also say that in 1998 to 2000 Schumacher was a bit little lucky, for the McLarens, although fast, were dreadfully unreliable. The Ferraris, meanwhile, were perhaps not quite as quick, but were built like tanks and able to mop up the points and wins when the McLarens packed in!

Hello McLaren fan

Agree, Schumacher wasn't "single-handedly responsible for Ferrari's upturn in form" - that's a straw man.

As to 1994 - let me ask you - do you think Schumacher would've won in that Beneton had Senna not died? He almost lost to Hill. I think the Williams was clearly faster that year. Generally I agree with you on 2003, the Ferrari was the quicker car, but at some tracks the Williams was faster yet Schumi won. Overall I take your point though. I did say "arguably at some races"

Now as to 1998... luck?? The McLaren/Bridgestone combination was 2-3 seconds quicker at the start of the season. And yet Schumacher would've won the title had DC let not suddenly lifted on the racing line on the run down to Pouhon at Spa (why didn't the guy just move over??) That old wound still festers and I could go on about that one, but I won't, but being told MS was in contention in 98 because of luck is... Was he lucky in Argentina? Was he lucky in Budapest? Was he lucky at SPA? (Hamilton fans calling him the new regenmeister should have a look at that race)

[bud]

i.e. Schumacher would only have won a couple of titles and Hakkinen a baker's dozen.

A baker's dozen = 13! I sure hope you weren't being serious!

Yeah, Hakkinen was really that good. No, seriously, I made a mistake. I don't know why I typed that! I shall go back and change it now.

I could rationalize it for ya: a baker's half dozen could be viewed as 6+1 (doubt it exists actually), so 7, the magic MS number

i wish my Baker would go by the Bakers codebook, i ask for a doezen rolls i get home and there is 10 damn sneaky rip off merchent those modern bakers are!

[darwin dali]

i.e. Schumacher would only have won a couple of titles and Hakkinen a baker's dozen.

A baker's dozen = 13! I sure hope you weren't being serious!

Yeah, Hakkinen was really that good. No, seriously, I made a mistake. I don't know why I typed that! I shall go back and change it now.

I could rationalize it for ya: a baker's half dozen could be viewed as 6+1 (doubt it exists actually), so 7, the magic MS number

i wish my Baker would go by the Bakers codebook, i ask for a doezen rolls i get home and there is 10 damn sneaky rip off merchent those modern bakers are!

Ha! I go to the baker and buy a baker's dozen bagels (the good kind) and I always get 14 bagels!

[bud]

Bagels, so NY - Love it

[nikon133]

Massa the reason I retired - Schumacher
http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/080715101556.shtml
Nearly two years after announcing his retirement as a Formula One driver, Michael Schumacher has cited his former team-mate Felipe Massa as a primary reason for hanging up his racing helmet.
"I stopped because I didn't want my friend Felipe Massa to be unemployed," the Swiss newspaper Blick quotes the seven time world champion as saying.
"I would have had no problem going up against Kimi Raikkonen," Schumacher adds, refuting the common claim that he objected to having the Finn as his 2007 team-mate.
Massa and Raikkonen, currently equal on points along with Lewis Hamilton in the 2008 championship standings, make up Ferrari's current race line-up.

That dosen't sound like a very good reason to retire to me.
If it's true and that's all it was, could we possible see him back ?

That is crap for sure. Not that he would not be able to fight Kimi, but after 2 seasons lost to Alonso, losing alpha-dog status in Ferrari was probably too much for his liking. Considering what he was used to, it does look like big downhill for him. Anyway, every true champion should know when to retire, and I think he choose wisely.

[McLaren Fan]

However you cannot deny the fact that whatever team Schumacher joined they became a success.

Ferrari enjoyed a period of domination never seen before in Formula One, this was mostly down to Schumacher...

I'm not denying that Schumacher brought success to wherever he went. What I'm disputing is the level of that success. Schumacher came to Benetton and Ferrari and did a good job when the teams' cars were pretty average, scoring points, getting podiums and the occasional win. A lesser driver could no do that. However, the fact remains he needed a good car and the best personnel around him to take his career to the next level and regularly competing for wins and championships.

As to 1994 - let me ask you - do you think Schumacher would've won in that Beneton had Senna not died? He almost lost to Hill. I think the Williams was clearly faster that year. Generally I agree with you on 2003, the Ferrari was the quicker car, but at some tracks the Williams was faster yet Schumi won. Overall I take your point though. I did say "arguably at some races"

In 1994, Schumacher almost lost to Hill because of a penalty he as made to serve after ignoring the initial penalty he was given at the British Grand Prix for overtaking on the formation lap. He was also disqualified in Spa for some minor technical infringement. Had those avoidable penalties not have been given to Schumacher, the controversy in Adelaide would never have happened; Schumacher would easily have won the title. The Williams FW16 started off as a very difficult car to drive. Its mechanical grip was very poor in comparison to the Benetton B194 and there were several aerodynamic problems with the car: the low nose design was outdated compared to Benetton's design and the rear end of the car was very skittish (which probably contributed towards Senna's fatal accident). The B194 very likely had traction control and certainly had launch control. Williams also went backwards for a time with the development of the car. Before the San Marino Grand Prix, new parts were put onto the car and Senna was very critical of them. It was not until the second half of the season that Williams got on top of the car's flaws. Only Senna's brilliance made the car look in half decent at the start of he season. Would Schumacher have won in 1994 had Senna lived? To be honest, no. Senna showed he could drag results out of the car and would probably have realised that he needed to play the percentage game (as he did in 1991 when the Williams FW14 was superior) until Williams got the car sorted.

[deMuRe]

However you cannot deny the fact that whatever team Schumacher joined they became a success.

Ferrari enjoyed a period of domination never seen before in Formula One, this was mostly down to Schumacher...

I'm not denying that Schumacher brought success to wherever he went. What I'm disputing is the level of that success. Schumacher came to Benetton and Ferrari and did a good job when the teams' cars were pretty average, scoring points, getting podiums and the occasional win. A lesser driver could no do that. However, the fact remains he needed a good car and the best personnel around him to take his career to the next level and regularly competing for wins and championships.

As to 1994 - let me ask you - do you think Schumacher would've won in that Beneton had Senna not died? He almost lost to Hill. I think the Williams was clearly faster that year. Generally I agree with you on 2003, the Ferrari was the quicker car, but at some tracks the Williams was faster yet Schumi won. Overall I take your point though. I did say "arguably at some races"

In 1994, Schumacher almost lost to Hill because of a penalty he as made to serve after ignoring the initial penalty he was given at the British Grand Prix for overtaking on the formation lap. He was also disqualified in Spa for some minor technical infringement. Had those avoidable penalties not have been given to Schumacher, the controversy in Adelaide would never have happened; Schumacher would easily have won the title. The Williams FW16 started off as a very difficult car to drive. Its mechanical grip was very poor in comparison to the Benetton B194 and there were several aerodynamic problems with the car: the low nose design was outdated compared to Benetton's design and the rear end of the car was very skittish (which probably contributed towards Senna's fatal accident). The B194 very likely had traction control and certainly had launch control. Williams also went backwards for a time with the development of the car. Before the San Marino Grand Prix, new parts were put onto the car and Senna was very critical of them. It was not until the second half of the season that Williams got on top of the car's flaws. Only Senna's brilliance made the car look in half decent at the start of he season. Would Schumacher have won in 1994 had Senna lived? To be honest, no. Senna showed he could drag results out of the car and would probably have realised that he needed to play the percentage game (as he did in 1991 when the Williams FW14 was superior) until Williams got the car sorted.

You're kind of stating the obvious here, of course you need good people around you, otherwise you're car wouldn't even be within a sniff of winning.

We are going to start getting into the chicken and the egg theory here. What came first? Schumacher or the right people?

If you ask me, technical staff were drawn to Schumacher because they knew they would have glory.

[deMuRe]

On the topic of Schumacher's penaltes in 1994, I hear that he was given those penalties so Hill had a chance of the title.

Any truth in that?

[McLaren Fan]

On the topic of Schumacher's penaltes in 1994, I hear that he was given those penalties so Hill had a chance of the title.

Any truth in that?

I shall talk about the 1994 British Grand Prix first. As you probably know, Schumacher was to be penalised for overtaking Hill on the formation lap. Schumacher, for some reason or other, seemed to ignore this penalty. Not before long, marshals were waving the black flag at him. Again, Schumacher seemed to ignore them. Benetton claimed that they had some communication difficulties with the stewards and were not aware that Schumacher was to be penalised. On television, members of the Benetton team were remonstrating with the officials for some reason or other. Soon after, Schumacher came into the pits for a stop-go penalty. On the face of things, it would look like Benetton did not get the message that Schumacher was being penalised, but later realised he was getting black-flagged and told him to stay out whilst they sorted out the problem. There have been numerous communication difficulties with the stewards anyway, so it's not unbelievable that there was some communication breakdown between they and Benetton. The stewards are basically a law unto themselves and the FIA would, of course, want to save face, so it's no surprise really that Benetton were said be to wrong and penalised. I don't, however, believe that the punishment was given to favour Hill's title bid. At this stage, he was a million miles behind Schumacher in the title race. Hill only got back into the title because of Schumacher's subsequent punishments. I also don't think that the stewards penalised Schumacher to give Hill a chance of winning the British Grand Prix. Schumacher did wrong, so had to be penalised no matter what track he was at. The problem was either Benetton chancing their arm or a communication breakdown between the team and stewards. Personally speaking, I think it was a bit of both. Later in the season, Benetton lost their appeal against the disqualification and the FIA also decided to ban Schumacher for two races. This is where I think Schumacher was treated a little harshly. First, on the face of things, it seemed that Benetton's pitwall crew stuffed up, so it was unfair to specifically target the driver for this. Second, Schumacher had already been rightly disqualified from the British Grand Prix for his offence, so a single-race ban or a pretty severe grid penalty would have been more fair. I'm also not sure, however,that this was done to help Hill's title bid. If the FIA or anybody else really wanted to scupper Schumacher's title chances or make the championship battle more exciting, they could have disqualified Benetton completely from both championships or gave them a nasty punishment for running launch control and almost certainly some form of traction control. Also, in the mid-1990s, the FIA often gave out heavy-handed penalties and Schumacher's sin, in their eyes, was pretty bad - exactly the sort of thing they clamped down on. I'll concede, though, that the FIA also have form in making decisions to spice up the end of a championship.

The second penalty of the season was also fairly controversial. Schumacher was disqualified because the skidblock was worn out too much. Benetton claimed this was because of accident or something Schumacher had during the race. The FIA didn't buy the story and disqualified him. To be honest, I think the FIA were probably right, for you would expect to be able to tell the difference between a skidblock that was intentionally too small or had been worn out throughout the race and one that had been damaged in an accident.

Overall, I would say Schumacher was very lucky. The Benetton did have some illegal electronic aids on it - the dogs on the street knew it, but it was tough to prove - so he could well have been excluded from the championship or severely penalised if the FIA really wanted to favour Hill. Furthermore, Schumacher's stunt in Adelaide was worthy of disqualification or exclusion from the championship (like what happened in 1997), so, again, the FIA could done that against Schumacher to favour Hill. As separate issues, however, the two-race ban was a little draconian, but the disqualification he incurred in Belgium was fair enough.

[deMuRe]

Ah, the dodgy Bennetton electronics, I remember reading about that in one of Alan Henry's books.

What wasn't commonly known was the same dodgy electronics was also found in the McLaren and Williams' cars, and they escaped punishment.

Thanks for the insight anyway, a good read. I wasn't watching F1 before 1997, however I'm trying to make up for it with books and downloads ;p

[McLaren Fan]

Ah, the dodgy Bennetton electronics, I remember reading about that in one of Alan Henry's books.

What wasn't commonly known was the same dodgy electronics was also found in the McLaren and Williams' cars, and they escaped punishment.

Thanks for the insight anyway, a good read. I wasn't watching F1 before 1997, however I'm trying to make up for it with books and downloads ;p

The electronics were found on McLaren and Ferrari's cars, not on Williams'. Again, there were some issues in proving what exactly was been used, but the dogs on the street knew they were up to something. I'm not sure about Ferrari, but McLaren had a programme that allowed the gears to be changed automatically. This was deemed legal because there was a loophole in the regulations that didn't specify automatic gears or something.

[bud]

Ah, the dodgy Bennetton electronics, I remember reading about that in one of Alan Henry's books.

What wasn't commonly known was the same dodgy electronics was also found in the McLaren and Williams' cars, and they escaped punishment.

Thanks for the insight anyway, a good read. I wasn't watching F1 before 1997, however I'm trying to make up for it with books and downloads ;p

downloaded many old races from the site we do not talk of in public?

[deMuRe]

Ah, the dodgy Bennetton electronics, I remember reading about that in one of Alan Henry's books.

What wasn't commonly known was the same dodgy electronics was also found in the McLaren and Williams' cars, and they escaped punishment.

Thanks for the insight anyway, a good read. I wasn't watching F1 before 1997, however I'm trying to make up for it with books and downloads ;p

downloaded many old races from the site we do not talk of in public?

Yeah hehe, I'm currently sitting at .33 UP/DOWN ratio and I'm too scared to download anything else, I want to download the whole f*cking site!!!

[FerrariFan63]

Three pages of this, and no-one seems to have twigged that this was most likely a joke!

[texasmr2]

Three pages of this, and no-one seems to have twigged that this was most likely a joke!

Please enlighten us all too your point of view?