I was conscious of the verb tense when I wrote the above...

I cannot imagine that Schumacher has unlearned his skill. However, I cannot deny the fact that he is being consistently beaten. As Rosberg seemed to be a fast qualifier but not a very fast overall driver, I think this means that Schumacher is being beaten by a very fast but not phenomenal, driver.

As I cannot imagine that Schumacher, in his prime, would be beaten (by anyone but, perhaps, Senna), I think he is past his prime.

That said, I acknowledge that Schumacher is struggling with set up. He seems to have tried to get his car to 'point' accurately and therefore he lost rear traction; perhaps with the longer chassis he may get pointing accuracy plus traction. But I would have expected a driver of Schumacher's calibre to be able to deal with a lack of accuracy in the front wheel train and, at any rate, to beat or at least play level with his team mate.

I agree that China was a case in point: Schumacher himself predicted his race to be very bad. But I think Sutil was right when he said that Schumacher must relearn how to drive an F1 car...

So the past tense is appropriate, I think.

That remains indeed the most sensible explanation. It's not exciting, probably even boring, but most likely true.

And for the record, I think those who try to deminish his earlier achievements based on this season are just as silly as those who expected him to perform like 10 years ago.

Hakkinen speaks:

http://beta.thehindu.com/sport/motorsport/article410149.ece

If I might offer my own thoughts on this. I have been saying for a number of years now that Michael Schumacher was assisted in his records by F1 taking a direction that absolutely suited his strengths. I have argued before that, were it not for refuelling being introduced in '94, that the complications of F1 up to that point - tyre management, a car which cannot be keyed into a pretty specific set-up for a limited amount of fuel in the sprints between stops - would have impacted upon his racing record. I believe that is what we are seeing now.

He can't get the car set up for what he wants to do with it because it has to cope with huge changes in fuel-weight, and also tyre management is a much greater part of the skill-set in F1 2010 than it was in 2006.

Your first post on this forum shows an intimate knowledge of the BB...
Welcome to your new (or additional) identity!

That is a very plausible explanation indeed, angst.

And one that I was not aware of, either. It's quite fascinating that the introduction of refuelling and thus short "dialed-in" stints stands at the beginning of the Schumacher domination years (with the genius of Ross Brawn, who is the dominant technical director of the refuelling years 1994 - 2009, backing him up).
And it's ironical that exactly in Schumacher's comeback year refuelling is banned. This accounts for more than the lack of testing (which also should have hurt, say, Vitali Petrov, but the Russian was driving circles around Schumacher in China, while Kubica could not match Rosberg...) or even the ready made, but quite superficial statement "he is past his prime".

I remember Nigel Mansell still winning a Grand Prix with 41 (in his fourth race after a 1 1/2 year hiatus), so I can't buy it that a man of Schumacher's calibre should be past his prime at 41.

You are on to something, angst, kuddos for it, excellent analysis.

F1 facilitated Schumacher's victories? Interesting dream; meetings in Brasil and London with others about Ferrari without Ferrari several years ago smelled to me like sabotage and open anti Ferrari hostilities, rather than accomodation, to name just two cases; but then, what do I know.

Most likely Schumacher has been past of his prime already at the age of 36. I don't know why people are debating about this issue. It's simple medical fact (I have already cited doctor who is specialized to the sport) that after 30 you are going to slight downhill in terms of reflexes and cordination. But when you are older than 40 years there are very clear changes.

Mansell winning grand prix doesn't even show that he was as fast as he was at his best. Mansell could have been 0.3 seconds slower than at his prime and still win the gp. And why to take excpetion out? Mika Häkkinen couldn't stand properly even against David Coulthard; imagine how Häkkinen would have been destroyed by Räikkönen even at the age of 35. Normally drivers start to loose their form after they are 30 years old. That's why formula 1 drivers are in most cases under 30 and very very rarely 40 years old.

I think motivation is clearly more important than age.
You mention Coulthard vs Hakkinen, are you thinking about 2001?
I think it was very clear to everybody that Hakkinen lost motivation in his last season.
He had a big accident and had poor reliability.
But he still beat Schumacher in a couple of races with an inferior car.

Fangio, Mario Andretti, Farina, Laffite all raced very competitively into their forties (and fifties, in the case of Mario). Experience counts more than reflexes; if you are relying on your reflexes then you are always behind the car(always reacting to it), and will never reach the heights of F1. What sets the top drivers from their opponents isn't super-fast reflexes, but rather an innate knowledge of the forces acting on a fast-moving vehicle; momentum, inertia, weight transfer etc. It is that innate knowledge, the almost unconscious capacity to learn these things (the same as with a gymnast, for example) that means that a driver can get into the 'zone'. The fastest drivers are able to predict, fraction of a second, by fraction of a second by fraction of a second, what their car will do and what effect their input will have.

The old adage that one never forgets how to ride a bike is very apt, because the ability to ride a bike is very like this. One begins by simply reacting to the bike (and so failing to retain balance), but then you learn to predict its behaviour, to pre-empt actions that will unbalance you.

The only thing that will slow a driver down as he gets older is the desire to get the job done, the competitive drive.

Not everyone hits their prime at the same time.

In NM's case he was still racing competively in Indycar, so it's not as if he had been sitting around doing nothing for a year and a half, and the car he came back to was not vastly different to the one he had previously driven. F1 car-wise has changed a lot in the last 4 years and not having competed for the last 4 years would have dulled his skills. I would expect him to improve, but I don't see him reaching anywhere near his previous levels.

Yet his Q-paces at the four first races are not great. Do you think that it is due to compromise that Schumacher has to make for the reason you mentioned?


Anyone can have reasons to anything tho.

Good post.

I think Schumi's fine - OK, he's not winning but he's still better than 2/3 of the grid even at 40.

Yes, I think that this might be playing its part. As Kubica has said; Kubica: New rules reward clever driving, the approach to racing is very different now that it was with refuelling.

If I might offer an analogy. Snooker and pool, on the face of it, require the same skill-sets, yet a great pool player will hardly ever be a great snooker player - and vice-versa. They will still be very, very good, but the different tactical requirements of the games rewards particular aspects of the skill-sets depending on the game being played.

So, we might say that the game of snooker was replaced by three games of pool, and now we have reverted to snooker




Exactly. Its not like he's become a crap driver. He knows how to drive, but there are aspects of the game now that don't suit his particular talents - like refuelling did.

"Mercedes is modifying its 2010 car to better suit Michael Schumacher's driving style." - ESPNF1

But why? I've been informed here that Schumi will blow everybody out of the water. Does this mean that Schumi can only succeed when the car has been totally tailored to his driving style, and if not, he's just your average joe. Makes you think.

http://www.planetf1.com/news/3213/6114741/...-To-Fix-Schumi-

Yeh, read a similar story here. With the title 'Mercedes introduce new car to fix Schumacher'. Not sure if that's a bit of journalistic creative licence there though. As I've said before, Spain could be a pivotal race for Schumi's comeback prospects.

Well one thing is undisputable; Michael is talk of the town.

And not for the reasons that most of us thought.

Who's informed you. The media? Other posters? How about you use the logic in your head that suggests that after 3 years out and at 41 years of age, he was never going to perform like he use too straight off the bat, if at all.

And then again, when you use that thing in your head, you'd realize that Michael's technical feedback has lead Mercedes to adjust the balance of the car to one that favors him. Rather then the current car that doesn't. Its not rocket science, they're not going to make a car that doesn't suit their driver.

So how do you explain that from 1991 to 1993, when there was also no refuelling, he blew away his team mates and was already getting results far better than the cars he was in should have allowed?
The only thing we are seeing now is the talent level in F1 is very high and that it's simply taking him time to get up to speed in an era with very limited testing. I have no doubt whatsoever that MSC will win races this year, and probably beat Rosberg in the championship. You'd better start baking some humble pie for when that happens

INTERVIEW-Motor racing-Schumacher still a winner, says Ross Brawn.




http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE63P12Y20100426

every driver needs a car that responds to his style..a driver that can achieve the same peaks in every car he sits in/every set of tyres(wider fronts/narrower fronts) in reality doesnt exist...its a fanboy fantasy.driving styles are like handwriting patterns.

and modifying the car doesnt mean its going to cater to MS's needs only.Brawn mentioned rosberg complaining about too much rear degradation as well..a more balanced weight distribution(which will surely be helped by a longer wheelbase) would help him too.

that doesnt make any sense what so ever.ive seen u post in other threads before ,claiming ''no driver likes understeer/oversteer setups,all of them have neutral setups'' and other similar ridiculous comments...u embarassed yourself there as well and now u come back and again go on commenting on stuff ,u clearly have no idea about...
''pointing''.???...how the heck will a longer wheelbase give him pointing + traction????..and what does that even mean.
'lack of accuracy in the front wheel train''????..OMG,it gets better and better


elaborate that part becaue it makes no sense at all..his problems have been due to the understeery nature of the car,he doesnt have that responsive front any more that is quintessential to all oversteer drivers.they overcompensated that by bringing too much weight tothe front,that lead to exaggerated rear slides and thus high tyre wear.once they ''nip the evil in the bud'' by bringing in updates that remove that US tendency from the basic design of he car,they wont have compensate by having too much weight to the front..a longer wheelbase will help.

in short,it has nothing to due with ''changing'' setups as fuel loads fall.

Talk to me in Nov again.

Apart from in NM's case the car he returned to (FW-16) had all the driver aids removed and did not have the grip he was used to with active suspension and traction control.

I don't think changes to the sport are that different in each case, but Mansell was racing continually in his time away from F1. Schuey has remained physically fit, but has done low level motorsport since his departure.

I can't believe this thread is going so strong - I guess the hate crew is getting in while they can is all I can put it down too.

Larry Perkins, one of Australia's fastest ever V8 Supercar drivers (and an ex F1 driver by the way) went into semi retirement towards the end of his career and starting missing races and later just entering the endurance events - he was simply blown away on track and mentioned that the new breed (X gen whatever) had just taken everything to a new level and that he hadn't lost any speed at all, they had just found more. Peter Brock more or less said the same thing.

Theres a bit of a catch 22 going on here, if there was testing then no doubt MS would totally commit and get to speed faster but if there was testing them that time absorption may also be the "no your not" from his missus and we wouldn't see him at all ;)

Just a quick one before I answer more fully. There are no changing set-ups; the set-up has to be much more of a compromise because of the differentials in fuel-load than with refuelling.

He was still driving cars without the gizmo's and the Indycars back then were not that far away from F1 performance. It's not fitness that is the problem, but simply being in practise.

I think its a totally different scenario. Mansell went to CART for 93/94, which back then was almost the absolute equal to Formula 1. Both in terms of quality of driver and performance of the cars. When Nigel returned to F1, it would have been a minimal amount of adjustment he needed to get back into the groove. Even so, he had his hands well and truly full with a top driver, the fast improving Damon Hill and in 1995 the McLaren just wasn't his cup of tea.

With Schumacher, he hadn't been racing for 3 seasons. Nothing relevant at all. It's a huge amount of time out and to then return to F1 with limited testing time, its a massive task. I think people slightly overestimated MS's ability but, more to the point, hugely underestimated the situation he had in front of him. 3 seasons is a long, long time....

Well..., that's just it...he didn't blow away his teammates in that period, did he? His first appearance was effectively, qualifying only - and his performance was electrifying. de Cesaris, by the end of the race, had worked his way through the field and was in a position to (potentially) challenge for the lead.

He was then teamed with Piquet, who had realistically underperformed all year. This was not the same Piquet who fought his way to three WDC, this was a driver ready for retirement. In Italy he outqualified Piquet (7th and 8th), and in the race he finished one place ahead of his teammate. In Portugal he outqualified him by a very small margin and then was beaten by him in the race. In Spain he outqualified his teammate, and in the race Piquet retired. In Japan Schumacher just outqualified his teammate and retired in the race. In Australia Piquet outqualified him, and Schumacher retired in the race. That hardly amounts to blowing Piquet away.

In 1992 he usually qualified better than his teammate, Brundle, but the races were much closer. Brundle could just as easily have won the Belgian GP as Schumacher did; it was due to a spin by Schumacher, that allowed Brundle past, that he was alerted to the state of Brundle's tyres - and made the reasonable inference that his tyres were likely in the same state (hence the spin) and so he pitted onto the right tyres for the conditions. Again, it could hardly be said that he blew Brundle away in their time together.

Then we have his year with Patrese as teammate. Patrese was unhappy at Benetton, and generally didn't adapt well to the driver aids - as can be seen by his drop in relative performance to Mansel between '91 and '92. He was well beaten by Schumacher that year, but I would hardly consider Patrese in '93 to be a benchmark for what a car is capable of.

So, in this period (pre-refuelling) he won two races. In a car that was by no means the best in the field, but it was no dog either.

The thing is, this isn't even necessarily a derogatory assessment of Schumacher, merely pointing out that his strengths (his ability to put in a series of very quick laps at strategic points in the race ) were absolutely perfect for the refualling era - and that that era perhaps masked his weaknesses (a relative term, you must understand).

So, you say that they put too much weight at the front which leads to "exaggerated rear slides and thus high tyre wear." Exaggerated slides? No, what happens is, to compensate the rear end grip is artificially lessened, but that just means less grip overall - poor traction etc. (which is exactly what we saw in China). If you are using the front end, and deliberately building oversteer into the car then the car will automatically have exaggerated rear slides, and will lead to higher tyre wear. That's why the Mercedes has been designed the way it has; because of the new regs - unfortunately they have over-compensated in the desing and it understeers, instead of the neutrality that they were after.

But your point about Schumacher's driving style is exactly what my point has been. He works on building oversteer into his set-up; that leads to (relatively) exaggerated rear slides which results in increased tyre wear. So, he may be able to race competitively, but unless refuelling was to be re-introduced, the different strategic requirements mean that he will not be a dominant factor - and nor would he have been were it not for the introduction of refuelling.

So now Brawn has admitted that the chasis was damaged in the first few races. How much of this had an effect on MS's speed is hard to know, I guess Barcelona will give us a clear picture

I'm agreeing with you Sakae. I think there will be an upturn in performance post-Spain, the alternative seems unthinkable.

these are two different things and both of them exist.

''setup changes'' do occur once the fuel loads starts to fall.as the setup itself doesnt change(wing ,suspension,tyre pressure settings etc),but the characteristics we attribute to the setup i-e oversteer/understeer,tyre degradation change throughout the race with falling fuel levels.

''compromised setups '' exist in the form that perhaps its now not viable to start a race with as much oversteer/responsiveness as u used to.because a car that is handling to your preferences on the heavy/moderate fuel load will start oversteering too much as the fuel loads fall..

then again this doesnt affect schumacher only.this effects the whole grid.theres no reason why he and he only should have problems with setups due to the refuelling ban.other oversteer demons eg hamiton,vettel are coping with it just fine.its the car itself with the US tendency that is hurting michael

You think?

New (old) chassis that has it's wheelbase changed and without testing? This is top level motor racing, seldom does anything instantly meld together.

If it does happen to work out over the one race weekend, which I doubt but possible, then this place will be awash with the "preferential treatment" crowd because he got a new chassis.

Well it's not a new chassis it's an old one from testing.

brawn himself said they had under-compensated for the narrower fronts....the only way for them to reduce understeer without major updates was to reduce rear grip

you are confusing things.at the start of the season,the narrower fronts meant the cars have an inherent tendency to understeer...what do they do now?..they develop the wings and suspension with that in mind to compensate for it so that the end product is the neutral thing they want...the mclarens and RB's in particular succeeded in this..the mercedes team didnt compensate enough and their end result in an understeery car.the chassis/wing updates were not realistic as there was no time for develoment b/w weekends.so what they did was (not my idea,quoting ross brawn from the bbc article),shift the load more to the front to the car.a shift forwards means the car has a tendency to oversteer(i explained that in the previous page of this thread as well,imagine the trail oversteer phenomenon)...also note that this is the aerodynamic load,not weight itself....what happened is that they overcompensated,put too much load to the front(again quoting ross brawn) and that resulted in massive rear slides as the traction on the rear was removed out of proportion to the front..this leads to decrease in traction and faulty exits from corners where u cant get on the throttle early enough..

rear slides are not bad by themselves..oversteer kings like schumacher/raikkonen induce rear slides on both slow.fast corners..there was a full autosport article on this by the name of ''the slide rulers''..the difference here is those slides are ''controlled'' slides.i-e they dont lose time and carry maximum momentum..an oversteery driver will always have more front than rear grip and thus more rear degradation than an understeery driver.that because he launches the rear in an inevitable sliding motion everytime he oversteers.the problems with the slides schumi was having is that they were ''uncontrolled''..i-e hes infact losing time correcting them and then getting on the throttle.those are basically due to the heavy front weight bias that brawn mentions.


this theory doesnt have a base as ive mentioned before ''all rear slides are not bad''....these oversteer guys are ''slide rulers''i-e they control their slides.problem with schumi is he hasnt been able to control these as he has very little rear grip.yes his style will always mean he less rear grip than front but this phenomenon has been exaggerated in the last few grand prixs.

if his problem had been the different strategic requirements of the ''no refuelling era'',then certainly ud expect him to show good qualifying speed.he doesnt have those requirements in the new qualifying format,right?.lowest fuel load,new set of tyres..however as things have turned out hes been off rosberg's pace in quali as well...which simply shows it isnt the ''no refuelling'' change or the ''compromised setups'' problem that is hurting him........

its the car,plain and simple.the understeery,non responsive front.add his 3 year break to the equation and ull begin to realize we need to wait for the season to finish to form a decisive opinion on whether hes lost it or not.whether the car itself that has a 100% role in his lack of speed or it has a 50-60% role with the rest made up by him being ''past his prime'',is what he dont know at this point.i doubt hes lost anything..wait and see.

Schumacher is the driver who has the distinction of bringing kart driving style into F1.
Oversteering driver through corners, "throwing kart/car around" and all.

Now that the regs do not reward this driving style any more, it will be a long season for the German.
Maybe his friend Jean can do something about it, though...
Well, maybe for 2011 at least.

Maybe you are that I polluted......for a rat appeared.




Indeed mate

Anyway I saw a past race and yea MS's face wreaked of arrogance lol, nowadays not so much at all actually. I hope it stays that way even if he wins.

That's maybe one of the best posts in this thread.

We all want to have Michael, the great racer back. Yet if he can go back to his winning ways while remaining humble and not displaying this ugly arrogance and Übermenschendom, then also Michael, the human being will have gained in the proceedings. Maybe he is given this chance to still turn that samskara of his around...

I found this quote from Brawn interesting:
"It's odd places where he's losing time and that's why we think he'll sort it out and we'll sort it out and get to where we need to."
That suggests that it's not a general problem, eg. that MS has "lost it," but that there's some specific problem or problems that they could solve to very quickly improve his form. It also makes me think of the earlier revelations that they found damage to MS's chassis.

More generally, reading this kind of attitude from Brawn makes it very hard to write MS or Mercedes off. Brawn is one sharp and experienced cookie. And now they've added Haug to their new "mini dream team."

Nah, I think you're wrong.

I think all the arm chair experts have got it spot on, MS is an old washed up has-been, Rosberg is the best ever, the car is actually the best on the field and Schumacher's success only came from having a VASTLY superior car and VASTLY inferior team mate.

It's true. Everyone is saying it, so it must be true

you expect someone who just won a race not to be happy? maybe everyone who wins should be almost crying

I agree that age plays a big part but I think it, as a factor in terms of athleticism, is slightly over-rated.

The biggest advantage Schumacher has now is experience and he can help develop the car far better than Rosberg can. His experience (race calls, strategy, tyre stops etc) will - combined with his ability to develop a race car and galvanise a team - will eventually lead him to beat Rosberg by the end of the year IMO.

Experience is everything when your reflexes are on the wane.

Look at Bernard Hopkins for example. He is 46 years old and still one of the best and top Pound for Pound fighters on the planet. He is a different beast compared to 10 years ago; slower, less accuate and slower reflexes but his ring savvniness is the best out there and has allowed him to dominate younger and fresher fighters for years now.

Schumacher - who was and is a far superior athlete compared to Hopkins - will prove that age is just a number.

Bernard Hopkins in his prime never got beat, he's been beaten quite a few times in recent years

OT:





For all your talk,you're probably missing the simple fact that your own constant hate and jealousy directed towards MS is ruining you from the inside. Ugly arrogance? Have you ever even met the man? Ask people in the know and they'd tell you Damon Hill was more of a snob than Schumacher ever was or is,for instance. Arrogance is one thing; putting up a cold defense to counter the constant media glare is another: don't confuse the one with the other. Follows from the same philosophy that you keep referring on this thread that all his success wouldn't have come to him had he not been deserving of the same. Karma,you know...

By the way,hope you stop with the nonsensical justifications for your hate drawn from a body of knowledge you have no understanding of: gets a bit annoying to after a while. Leave the esoteric stuff to the east,it isn't meant to be dragged out of context. Thanks.

One of the best narratives I read on this BB in long, very long time. Perhaps a reason to stay little longer in here, in very comforting to know that next to truck full of silly posts there is always one that stands apart.

From JAOF1: http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2010/04/schu...om-old-friends/

"That said there is a rather worrying comparison with the old Schumacher. For my biography of him in 2007, Ross Brawn talked about his ability to drive around any problem or imbalance in a car,

“One of the problems with Michael is that he has such great raw talent that he can drive around an imbalance. So you have to be careful with that because you can make a change and he will compensate for it very quickly. He might be doing similar lap times but it doesn’t throw the changes into focus so you can go the wrong way (on set up). There is never the disparity with Michael between a car which is perfect and one which is not so good, as you would get with other drivers.

“This is also a weakness because it makes the difference between a good car and an average car less discernible in testing and you can easily misread how competitive a car really is.”

Even his staunchest allies would agree that, at the moment, it is hard to reconcile those words with what we are seeing from the 41 year old version of Michael Schumacher."

Allen is a huge MS fan.

Why are you being idiotically rude? Be polite or shut up.