You're right the problem with the radio transmissions, as revealing as they are and a good addition to the coverage, they are only selective and can never give a whole picture of what the dialogue between pits and car is.

Johnrambo, Man and other Schumacher bashers are clearly on the wind up when it comes to these sorts of comments.

They don't take themselves seriously (God help us if they do!) so we shouldn't either. They are looking for a reaction and some people fall into their hands.

Rainmaster is back lets hope he can do a really good Q3 time aswell

Poor old Michael

Bad strategy in Q3. They need to run and not to wait in the pit. More laps was key for success in Q3.

they've ****ed possible top3. tomorrow should be fun anyway as it seems he has the pace

yea apart from his first quick lap in q3 he was nowhere near the pace :S

alot of the time his sectors looked like he was on a cooling down lap maybe bad traffic?

The other guys were fast from lap 1 on drys, MS was not fast even on his second lap.
MS failed in Q3.

of course, Nico failed in Q2, eventhough he was going quicker than MS.

Only 3 tenths faster on slicks than his time with intermediate tyres...

Good effort though

I think he had no temp in the tires. Thay probably should have done more laps.

aww...are you mad now?

I didn't see anything from Schumacher once he put the slicks on, did he make errors or did he just not get on top of it with his final lap(s)? Still he's in a good position for a dry race, I'm not sure those Williams will keep that position come the chequered flag, so hopefully Schumacher can be in battle with those guys for 6th.

I thing it is more a potential of Mercedes on dry track. And maybe, though I doubt it, he run more dry setup than others.

Good point, no-one was "fast" on their first dry tyre run, missed opportunity and I think it showed by Schumacher's face once he got out of the car.

Combination of poor strategy and a bad lap from MS. They needed to run a lot on slick tyres, every lap was quicker, but again MGP screwed up, making MS wait in the pits for what looked like an eternity.

wow, even Rosberg was slower that MS in Q2 anyway he was better(quicker) than MS.
"nice" logic

Both his last laps were on similar time so it doesn't look like it was his fault. That's why i'm saying it's probably more due to no temp.

MS was fastest in the final sector (along with LH and faster than NH). Looks like the temperature just kicked in then - unfortunately too late.

Good info. I gave up when i saw sector 1 time on his last lap. half a second faster than his last but still half a second slower than the best.

Look forward to Qual from Mercedes Onboard channel .
I hope I will able to watch all MS laps in Q3 .

Schumacher destroyed Rosberg today, but I can't help but too feel a bit disappointed.
How on earth did that 3rd place slip away in the end! Absolutely can't believe how the dying moments punished the Mercedes car so badly!

He just needed more laps. He have 1-2 fast laps, when others have 5-6 fast laps. Hulk use his laps best. Bad judgement of situation.

Looks like Schunacher and Rosberg have the fastest car in sector three so looking forward to some overtaking from the Mercedes guys.


Also good to see Schumacher hasn't lost his wet weather skills and he is still improving with the 2010 car. Good effort.

Disapointing as MS has been this year I have a feeling alot of people are going to eat crow next season once he gets out of that Jenson Button abomination. Wishful thinking perhaps but being an aggressive driver that car was never going to do him any favours at all. Watching Button struggle in a McLaren really shows how differently it must be designed.

He said he´s disappointed and believes that there was much more possible today. He had to let Webber and Vettel through on his warm-up lap, leaving the dry line, which might have had an influence on tyre temperature.

What is the weather prediction for tomorrow? Michael looked superb out there in the tricky conditions today

Pirelli urges support for aggressive tyres
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/87984
Christmas come early for Michael.

Hello Michael

I was hoping for a BIG surprise and wished Michael to be in the TOP 3 today but then I saw he was 2 sec+ behind at the end . so who knows what happenned ....

Im both happy and somewhat dissapointed ....

Schumacher might end up on the podium if weather conditions come into play for the race ...


Michael Schumacher is still the best driver in F1 - always has and always will be , even at 41 !

it seemed mercedes messed up and sent him out to late his tyres apeared to finally get up to temprature in sector 3 on his last lap.

on his warm up lap he had to move off the dry line onto the wet track to allow the red bulls passed aswell which cant have helped.

everyone else stayed out on track doing laps keeping the tyres warm while mercedes opted to have michael sit in the garage.

Another missed opportunity for a great result. Bah

Yes, eighth on the grid is deplorable considering Hülkenberg, of all people, in a Williams (!) scored the pole.
Germany has a new Regenmeister, his name is Hülkenberg.

And Rubens again ahead of Michael...

It was a pretty good job from Michael today, lately he does seem to be getting more of a handle on things. However, before claims of; best driver in F1 can be made, he'll first have to beat Nico over the course of a season. And as for; always will be the best... that may be difficult for him to achieve, considering that before this season started, most polls (and expert opinions) didn't rate him as the best.

surely he can't sleep over those expert poles...

I was watching Q3 with Schumacher's onboard view only (there's a service for that in Germany). I think his outlap on the slicks was quite significant for him struggling to manage a good laptime with the slicks.
He had to let several cars past that were on their hotlaps, which meant that he not only had to slow down but also drive through several wet areas. So I suppose it's no wonder his tyre temps and pressures weren't really good for the hotlaps.
Especially on his first flying lap with the slicks he was sliding all over the place, litereally no grip at all. It was better on his second lap, but far from optimal I guess.
I guess that's some explanation for his rather bad performance in the end, compared to what could have been possible.

Expert poles? Senna already owns the record for expert poles and I'm sure Michael accepted that fact a long time ago. As for the polls I was talking about, none of us can really say how much (if any) sleep Michael loses over them. My guess is that Michael (currently) spends more time tossing and turning worrying about whether next years tyres will provide enough grip to allow him and his buddy (Felipe) to get closer to their respective teammates.

As Senna holds no pole records I have to ask what does "expert pole" mean by your definition?

You are mistaken, most English based polls do not, however most European ones do and surprise, surprise most South American polls give it to Senna or Fangio - hell, I've even seen a French poll give it to Prost, who would have figured that ....

Just to help with your education this is the dictionary's meaning of the word "best"

best (bst)
adj.
Superlative of good.
1. Surpassing all others in excellence, achievement, or quality; most excellent: the best performer;

n.
1. One that surpasses all others.

tr.v.
best·ed, best·ing, bests
To get the better of; beat:


Schumacher's 7xWDC and 91 GP's is the best, therefore he is the best by definition.

Now I KNOW that you know why Michael didnt get a really good time in Q3.. I KNOW you read everything that comes out and know that his team screwed up by releasing him into the path of cars on their fast lap, causing him to go off line and slow on his outlap losing the temp in his tyres, which once gone will not come back. I know that you know he made no errors on his laps and that his actual speed here was as good as anyones (as we saw on the inters). I also know you know that the secret to Hulks fantastic performance was that he had a very aggressive and uninterrupted out lap and therefore got a better tyre temp going than everyone else. Combined with a mistake free 2 laps that gave him a pole which is huge credit to him and the team.

Knowing you know this (you being an informed and smart fan), I am bemused by your posting.

Sorry, I just realised that his fastest third sector (18.2) must have been from the intermediate tyre running and not from the time he was out on slicks.

You can do much better than that. I think you are a little bit sad that Michael didn't get a great result and decided to show your frustration with a post that makes no sense.

.... and not a word of the decency of Schumacher totally giving up his chance at a better grid position to let the WDC contenders do their thing.

Shame Rosberg couldn't get a decent session together to give a fairer comparison to see if MS is still improving or not but every driver has "those weekends" hope for better luck for Rosberg in the race.

Grats to Hulkenberg he also had one of "those weekends" (so far) but for the right reasons, hopefully a taste of success even in the form of a pole will inspire his driving further as often has happened to drivers in GP history.

O what a great job by Rubens, all he has to do is be in front of michael and his year is perfect. To bad though his rookie teammate is a "bit" further up the grid he.;)

Michael had again a bit of bad luck in the 3rd part of quali. I believe he could have been up the order a bit but still he did a good job yesterday. Now let's see what today's race will bring.

on drys? Michael did 2 fast laps on dry tyres, others did 3. What a huge difference.

http://www.mediafire.com/?f0o02x3g0izdto4
Michael's laps on dry tyres in Q3 (include complete out lap and two flying laps). 138 Mb
Footage has been taken from Mercedes Onboard channel (so footage came from Onboard cam on Schumi car ).
Big Thanks to McR for sharing it

He did one fast lap on dry tyres, what is the problem with you that it's reported here, on TV and all over the internet but you can't keep up?

For your attention, each lap on dry tyres Hulkenburg gained an extra second aprox over the previous lap.

The extra lap Hulk got in (by just 4 seconds) was over one second faster than the lap before that.

Hulk
1.17.4
1.16.3
1.15.4
1.14.5

Most of the others also went around 1 second quicker after their proper warm up lap, Schumacher's time was his warm up lap. Had Schumacher not done the right thing and moved over for Red Bull cars he had a realistic chance of the 2nd row let alone the teams mistake overall.

Up until that point Schumacher was 0.04 behind Hamilton in second place in the rain, Hulkenberg was a further half second back with the others - yeah, the new rainmaster ....

Quick theory time.

Interlagos has a lot of elevational changes and because of this a lot of downhill corner entries, presumeably when the cars are pointing down a steep hill it affects weight distribution and places more weight over the front wheels. If this is true maybe this is neutralising some of the cars inherint understeer which is why Schumacher is finding more speed at this track?

http://www.motorsport-total.com/f1/news/20...n_10110714.html

The Pirelli sporting director confirmed that they´ll deliver a stronger front tyre next year

Schumacher had 2 fast laps on dry tyres, well, at least he had 2 attempts. Quite enough IMO. Hamilton had 3, so did Alonso and Red Bull guys. Hamilton purpled on his first fast lap on dry tyres. Schumacher was unable to do anything special. Just accept it.

Maybe that's the best the car could do, Schumacher was the fastest of the two Mercedes drivers and the only one who managed to get into Q3, so we can only presume Schumacher got the maximum out of the car as the fastest driver on the day.

Or is that statement as absurd as yours?

Because it wasn't up to him. It was a bad release.

On thr intermediates he was 3rd with an equal time to Webber.