End of an Era
by Andy on Oct.23, 2006, under General
The most successful Formula One race driver retired yesterday.
Unlike former legends such as Senna and Prost, I have witnessed the whole of Michael Schumacher’s career.
From his first race in the now-defunct Jordan team, through the Bennetton years and to the Ferrari glory days.
Schumacher has always divided opinion - his tactics on the track have been as shady as he has been talented. Damon Hill has criticised Schumacher quite openly of tarnishing his legend with moments such as Adelaide 1994, Jerez 1997 and even up to this year where he was accused of deliberately positioning his car to prevent the title leader from getting Pole position.
The Adelaide incident has been analysed so many times, and I don’t believe it was pre-meditated, merely Schumacher acting on instinct. He knew he’d messed up, knew the car was damaged, Hill came upon him, saw an opportunity to pass, and Schumacher moved to block him.
A combination of Hill’s opportunism, and Schumacher’s survival instinct meant that the collision occured. Fault will always lie squarely at Schumacher’s feet - he knew the car was broken, and had Hill known, I’m sure he would have held back from overtaking him.
Jerez was a completely different matter… in Martin Brundle’s infamous words “That didn’t work, my friend… you hit him in the wrong place!”
As for Monaco this year, it is debatable whether a driver with Michael’s skill would have locked up into the corner, or even deliberately left the back of the car hanging out onto the racing line… He was penalised, so therefore was found guilty.
That aside, the history books will always show Schumacher as the most successful driver of all time, with 7 world driver’s championships. However, in all that time, he has had no real competition… Senna and Prost won 7 world titles between them, however, they drove in a time where they were each other’s competition… and drivers such as Piquet, Mansell and Keke Rosberg were also scoring wins.
Formula One in the 1980s was a lot more competitive, with the drivers (and cars) being more equal. the 90’s and early 2000’s saw only minor competition for Schumacher (Notably Hill and Hakkinen). Only when Schumacher has been in an uncompetitive car have the competition got close to him. (with the exception of 1999, when he was out for 3 months with a broken leg).
While the history books will show Schumacher as the most successful of all time - only time will tell if he will be remembered as the greatest. How many of today’s F1 fans have seen Fangio racing? (I haven’t).
But love him or hate him, Schumacher has always brought some entertainment to the sport, and now we have a new face flying the flag for Ferrari: Kimi Raikkonnen. Kimi does not have anywhere near the charisma of Schumi, but for the first time ever, he actually cracked a joke on Sunday (Maybe he’s trying to get a personality in preparation for joining the italian team?) When asked why he’d missed a presentation ceremony for Michael, Kimi (never one to really show adoration to Schu) replied with typical deadpan: “I was having a shit!”.
Funniest moment of Formula One for many years!
