Schumacher cheated 1994 world title

[LazorRamone]

I remember Senna having suspicions that the Benetton car was illegal in 1994.
Jos Verstappen has accused MS "of winning his first world championship with the help of illegal electronic aids" now.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/08122011/ ... title.html

http://www.crash.net/f1/comments/175384 ... ating.html

What are your opinions?

[andrew]

This smacks of sour grapes from Jos the Loss. If this was true then surely he would have blown the whistle once he left Benetton not 17 years later. I can’t see how he can say Schumacher cheated unless the great man himself added parts to the car which I very much doubt is the case. What his claims point to is that Benetton possibly cheated in 1994, a team which he was part of so I guess that means that his efforts in 1994 should be struck from the records? Anyone with half a brain that followed Schumacher from the start of his F1 career could see that he was something special and that no driver aids. Jos the Loss should just stick to what he’s best at – hitting people at kart races, breaching restraining orders and possibly (not proven or unproven yet) hitting his girlfriend. Yeah, the guy is a real class act(!)

As for Senna’s claims, well what was his evidence? Again, sour grapes as he couldn’t handle being beaten by some unkown kid in a year where he should have been romping off to his fourth title where his only competition should have been his obedient team mate.

I call on this due to the lack of evidence provided by Verstappen unless he seriously expects the world to believe that he was an equal match for Schumacher which is hilarious!

[LewEngBridewell]

I doubt many people will pay attention to these claims. It was 17 years ago for goodness sake.

[scotty]

Meh. I've heard too many stories about this now and they all contravene each other so who's to say for sure. The launch control story is feasible to me but that's it.

I may ask my uni lecturer what he thinks for the hell of it though. Geoff Goddard - ex chief designer at Cosworth, who designed that engine. I'd definitely take his word for it, whatever the truth is.

Either way nothing will change now, and that '94 Benetton chassis was sodding good! That's what won the championship.

[australia99]

believed it then, believed it now. Briatore is now a proven cheater with his efforts at Renault, so it's reasonable to assume he would have done it back then too.

[bud]

This is true about the traction control but his biggest cheat that season was him deliberately taking Damon Hill out in Adelaide!

[andrew]

You mean the move that Damon Hill has since admitted was a desperate lunge on his part?

[bud]

You mean the move that Damon Hill has since admitted was a desperate lunge on his part?

all he said was in hindsight he should have waited as Schumacher broke his suspension when he went off track.

Still doesn't change the fact Schu deliberately turned in on Hill which he repeated again with Jaques in 97 and got DSQ for the season for it.

I was at the race in 94 with my dad, had seats on pit straight. I still remember a lot of people booing him after Hill parked it. That day paved the way for my dislike of him, he proved he was not a sporting person.

[scotty]

Is that the same move in which Schumacher essentially admitted to having done on purpose?!

[madbrad]

IB4DL

[stonemonkey]

Flav was right not to let Jos in on it, he knew eventually he'd go flapping his gums about it.

[JamesD89]

Either way nothing will change now, and that '94 Benetton chassis was sodding good! That's what won the championship.

Well that + Schumacher's consistency + Senna's death. What a fight that could have been.

I suspect there are a number of cars that have breached the regulations through the sport's history - it's the name of the game. Teams will always do everything to produce the fastest possible car, it's down to the FIA (or the body of that era) to prove its illegality.

Jealousy stinks Jos, move on!

[LewEngBridewell]

This is true about the traction control but his biggest cheat that season was him deliberately taking Damon Hill out in Adelaide!

Of course, it would set the tone for a series of dubious incidents that Schumacher rustled up, but we all know what those were.

[zurich_allan]

Frst of all, this isn't news, this is olds... all of these issues have been known about for years and years.

Secondly, some people really need to read up on their F1 history. And before I go on I'd like to point out that I'm a big Schumacher fan and genuinely believe that the best racers in history have had both an aggressive and borderline rulebreaking attitude. And I don't see anything wrong with that. I also believe that turning in to Hill at Adelaide '94 was a deliberate act, but not one that Schumi considered and calculated, I think it was pure instinct. Wrong, but excusable.

The part that it's clear some people need to read up on is that it's not even debatable that these driver aids were on the car - they were. The factual run down is that launch control and traction control were there in a hidden program that could only be activated by pressing buttons on the steering wheel in a very specific order in order to make the option of turning them on available. The existence of the aids would go completely undetected if an ordinary FIA check were made of the menu options. Benetton did try to block the FIA at various attempts to have the software scrutinised in detail, eventually only allowing it after what amounted to not far off a court order! It was found, it was detected and it did exist.

The only thing that is in question is if the aids were actually used during qualifying and / or race conditions. That is something that we can debate until the cows come home but will never have a definitive answer on unless either Schumacher or Briatore come out and admit it. Two things though relating to proof. There are two acceptable standards of proof generally used around the world - 'beyond reasonable doubt' in a criminal case, which this isn't comparable to, or 'on the balance of probabilities' in a civil case, which this is comparable to. Given the non-debatable existence of the aids and Benetton's actions of blocking the FIA scrutinising along with what would amount to expert testimony from others in F1 at that time (many have given informal evidence of what behaviour of the car at the time indicates that the aids were indeed being used), it is certainly arguable that the evidence may well meet the second of these burdens of proof.

On a more serious note, and it's a discussion point, not something I am asserting before the daggers are drawn, the question is, if Benetton were using these aids, and had they been more sporting and not used them, would Senna have been killed or might he still have been with us today?

[JamesD89]

On a more serious note, and it's a discussion point, not something I am asserting before the daggers are drawn, the question is, if Benetton were using these aids, and had they been more sporting and not used them, would Senna have been killed or might he still have been with us today?

I agree regarding attitude towards competition, but was in the dark as to what happened off track in '94 - before my time by 3 years. Thanks for that.

One lapse in concentration could kill an F1 driver, not just mechanical failures on a car operating beyond its limit. Senna could have died before Imola, everything's unknown if the circumstances change - speculation seems out of place.