I am certainly not. Schumacher was/is incredibly popular the world over. He won tons of races for Ferrari (by far the most popular team) and is a hero in Germany/Italy. I live in the United States and if I asked 100 random people to name a F1 driver, chances are the only one they would know is Schumacher (possibly Senna because of the movie). Look at the outpouring of support from his fans after his accident. You may think he is unpopular because I don't believe him to be very popular in England. Of course, this is because he absolutely dominated all English teams and drivers for years and years (similar to why Vettel is unpopular in England now). Austria 02...and can you name another one? Keep in mind MS handed a win to Barrichello at Indy in 2002. I don't mean to be harsh, but that is delusional, IMO.
In dealt with Prost in another post. Stewart? He was 3 times WDC with Ken Tyrell: a tiny team with limited budget. Tyrrell went in F1 with F2 budget and not much money to spare, if any. They didn't have many technical facilities and subcontracted much of the engineering work. So Stewart certainly didn't benefit from large resources, bottomless funds or plenty of engineers. Team Tyrrrell was Ken and his wife, designer Gardner, a handful of mechanics fulfilling several roles each and Helen Stewart as timekeeper! The manpower was sometimes so short that Tyrrell had to wait for the end of podium celebration to enrol Jackie to help pushing the car in the truck; that's how few people there was! Thanks God there was no refuelling or tyre change in the pits during a race: Tyrrell didn't have the staff! One year, when the team was short of engine at Monaco after a breakage in practice, Ken Tyrrell drove himself overnight from Monte-Carlo to Didcot and back, to haul a spare Cosworth DFV in the back of his own Ford Granada Estate. So much for big budget! So, saying Stewart's cars were superior is a gross exaggeration. In fact Stewart raced on Matra and March customer cars, and then received the Gardner-designed Tyrrell he had to develop himself. He won on all of them. To my knowledge, Stewart is the only one to have ever won a GP on a Matra, or a March, but I may be wrong. All this makes me think that today's drivers are like pampered pop stars.
I don't think so. Many foreign drivers have been greatly appreciated in Britain: Fittipaldi or Piquet for example, or Prost , etc... No, Schumacher has come under criticism in Britain, because in spite of all his talent he lacked one quality essential for us to like him: sportsmanship. He just didn't have any; it's a simple as that. I am afraid I can see the same trait now emerging in his compatriot Vettel... Ah, well ...
I do not disagree that Stewart was one of the greatest, but what car was superior to the Matra-Cosworth in 1969? You have to admit that Tyrell 005 was the class of the field along with the Lotus 72 and the McLaren M23 in 1973, correct?
+1 Not sure what the budget of the team has to do with anything. Stewart didn't work any miracles in his WDC years. The cars were damn good.
What made Stewart's cars so great was the driver! The Matra MS80 was an hybrid, intended to carry a Matra V12 initially. Tyrrell managed to mate it to a DFV. It's asset was the partitioned tank system, avoiding excessive mass transfer. At Stewart's demand, Gardner designed the Tyrrell 005 with a very short wheelbase, contrary to the tendency at the time, making the car nimble but also very twitchy. Only Stewart took advantage to the full of this characteristic and lived with it. Amon tried it and scared himself, claiming the car to be highly unstable. So much for superior cars. Stewart was just very talented and at one with his cars. Not unlike Clark when it comes to that, but Stewart was certainly more technical.
I just saw this and thought it was funny (with some great drivers), perhaps it will lighten the mood. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KEaZW5YOVo]F1 (Formula 1) Brundle and Berger cause mayhem! - YouTube[/ame]
One year, he won the German GP in the rain at the old Nurburgring. The second was ...5 minutes behind!! No miracle, of course ...
I disagree. In almost every race, Schumacher was behind Senna. Schumie had 4 retirements to Senna's 7 and only won by 3 points. This was in the 1992 season, his first FULL season. Michael Schumacher 4 3 3 2 Ret 4 2 Ret 4 3 Ret 1 3 7 Ret 2 53 Brazil Ayrton Senna 3 Ret Ret 9† 3 1 Ret Ret Ret 2 1 5 1 3 Ret Ret 50 1993 season, Schumacher had more Retirements.
I will concede that Alonso is a great driver, although despite two world championships he will be largely forgotten a decade after he retires. My counterpoint to him being the GOAT is that the best ever wouldn't struggle to beat a rookie teammate (2007?) just after two aformentioned world championshps. You could make an equal argument that Hamilton has the makings of being the greatest of all time. All we know is Alonso is better than Fishichella, Trulli, Piquet Jr., Massa, and probably Raikkonen.
You need to read more about Mansell then because he was known as a whinger (or whiner) long before FerrariChat.com even existed! Whenever he lost in a race it was because the car wasn't good enough, he didn't get the right calls made on pit-stops, the team got the set-up wrong, other drivers were not racing fairly, the weather wasn't right for his car, any excuse other than he was simply out-raced. Even when he won races he'd complain that it was no thanks to the car which he'd had to battle with all race long, or that he won despite the team getting things wrong, he'd won despite other drivers not racing fairly, back markers could have made things easier for him, etc., etc. The Tifosi called him "Il Leone" (the Lion), when he joined Ferrari due to his driving style of grabbing a car by the scruff of the neck and wringing everything possible out of it. Once Prost joined Ferrari though and things started getting a bit tougher for Mansell (both in the team and on track ), suddenly he was complaining every two minutes about everything, life was suddenly not fair and then he was quitting F1 every other race weekend! Trust Me - Nigel Mansell's reputation as being a whinger (whiner), most definitely doesn't stem from FerrariChat!
Can´t understand why he is better than Trulli, he was being beaten by him in 2004 until Briatore decided to sabotage Trulli who incidently passed from a front runner and faster Renault driver to an obscure figure with a piece of crap car after flavio realized he was destroying he's golden boy reputation...
Autosport asked 217 Formula One drivers* to rank the top 10 greatest drivers from the World Championship era and Michael Schumacher came in 2nd overall. Senna was 1st. You don't have to like Schumacher, but don't conflate your opinion with the consensus of the drivers, or the public. *Poll participants: Kenny Acheson, Andrea de Adamich, Kurt Ahrens, Christijan Albers, Jean Alesi, Jaime Alguersuari, Philippe Alliot, Mario Andretti, Michael Andretti, Marco Apicella, Rene Arnoux, Ian Ashley, Gerry Ashmore, Julian Bailey, Fabrizio Barbazza, Skip Barber, Rubens Barrichello, Zsolt Baumgartner, Derek Bell, Tom Belso, Allen Berg, Enrique Bernoldi, Olivier Beretta, Michael Bleekemolen, Mark Blundell, Bob Bondurant, Slim Borgudd, Raul Boesel, Jean-Christophe Boullion, Sebastien Bourdais, Thierry Boutsen, David Brabham, Jack Brabham, Bill Brack, Martin Brundle, Gianmaria Bruni, Sebastien Buemi, Luiz Bueno, Luciano Burti, Jenson Button, Tommy Byrne, Mario Cabral, Johnny Cecotto, Andrea de Cesaris, Eddie Cheever, Andrea Chiesa, David Coulthard, Tony Crook, Yannick Dalmas, Derek Daly, Christian Danner, Anthony Davidson, Colin Davis, Jean-Denis Deletraz, Johnny Dumfries, Vic Elford, Bob Evans, Maria Teresa de Filippis, Ralph Firman, Giancarlo Fisichella, Christian Fittipaldi, Wilson Fittipaldi, Norberto Fontana, Patrick Friesacher, Beppe Gabbiani, Bertrand Gachot, Patrick Gaillard, Nanni Galli, Marc Gene, Peter Gethin, Piercarlo Ghinzani, Jose Froilan Gonzalez, Jean-Marc Gounon, Keith Greene, Romain Grosjean, Miguel Angel Guerra, Roberto Guerrero, Mauricio Gugelmin, Dan Gurney, Masahiro Hasemi, Nick Heidfeld, Hans Herrmann, Hans Heyer, Johnny Herbert, Damon Hill, Ingo Hoffmann, Gus Hutchison, Jacky Ickx, Eddie Irvine, Jean-Pierre Jabouille, Jean-Pierre Jarier, Stefan Johansson, Bruce Johnstone, Alan Jones, Narain Karthikeyan, Ukyo Katayama, Eddie Keizan, Nicolas Kiesa, Peter de Klerk, Christian Klien, Leo Kinnunen, Robert Kubica, Franck Lagorce, Jan Lammers, Pedro Lamy, Nicola Larini, Oscar Larrauri, Giovanni Lavaggi, Neville Lederle, Gijs van Lennep, Jackie Lewis, Tonio Liuzzi, Brett Lunger, Mike Macdowel, Damien Magee, Jan Magnussen, Helmut Marko, Tarso Marques, Pierlugi Martini, Jochen Mass, Cristiano da Matta, Francois Mazet, Gaston Mazzacane, Allan McNish, Arturo Merzario, Roberto Mieres, John Miles, Franck Montagny, Tiago Monteiro, Andrea Montermini, Juan Pablo Montoya, Gianni Morbidelli, Roberto Moreno, Kazuki Nakajima, Satoru Nakajima, Massimo Natili, Tiff Needell, Brausch Niemann, Hideki Noda, Fritz d'Oray, Torsten Palm, Jonathan Palmer, Olivier Panis, Giorgio Pantano, Max Papis, Tim Parnell, Riccardo Patrese, Luis Perez-Sala, Henri Pescarolo, Paul Pietsch, Teddy Pilette, David Piper, Nelson Piquet Jr, Emanuele Pirro, Antonio Pizzonia, Eric van de Poele, Dieter Quester, Bobby Rahal, Pierre-Henri Raphanel, Nano da Silva Ramos, Brian Redman, John Rhodes, Alex Ribeiro, Pedro de la Rosa, Basil van Rooyen, Nico Rosberg, Ricardo Rosset, Huub Rothengatter, Eliseo Salazar, Mika Salo, Stephane Sarrazin, Ian Scheckter, Jody Scheckter, Tim Schenken, Jean-Louis Schlesser, Bernd Schneider, Michael Schumacher, Ralf Schumacher, Chico Serra, Tony Settember, Scott Speed, Philippe Streiff, Siegfried Stohr, Hans-Joachim Stuck, Danny Sullivan, Marc Surer, John Surtees, Adrian Sutil, Aguri Suzuki, Patrick Tambay, Kunimitsu Takahashi, Gabriele Tarquini, Trevor Taylor, Eric Thompson, Jarno Trulli, Esteban Tuero, Bobby Unser, Nino Vaccarella, Jos Verstappen, Emilio de Villota, Sebastian Vettel, Jo Vonlanthen, Derek Warwick, John Watson, Mark Webber, Karl Wendlinger, Robin Widdows, Mike Wilds, Jonathan Williams, Justin Wilson, Markus Winkelhock, Alex Wurz, Sakon Yamamoto, Alex Yoong, Alex Zanardi, Ricardo Zonta, and Ricardo Zunino.
+1, very credible group in my opinion, like I stated earlier, they ranked several higher than I would have such as Nigel Mansell, but they are much more qualified to make these judgements than me!
Nigelwas no more a whiner then Alain Prost or Ayrtonna Michael Schumacher never complained about any situation he was in can't say that for the rest of formula 1 drivers Jackie Stewart still cries about Michael How mean he was on the track what a joke
I watched everyone of his races live when it happened, rode the elevator with him and his wife in Montreal, have read and heard a lot of him since and the only place I hear this BS is from a few here. In fact some here said he had a crap rep at Williams and that is NOT the case. Watch Peter Windsor's video of the Williams Collections Hall. A lot of folks don't have their facts straight.
+1 The guy was always complaining about something, and ready for some theatricals to get some attention. His interviews were so comical to watch again and again. The guy was just either a sore loser or an ungrateful winner.
That's because the moves and dirty tricks performed by Michael Schumacher against his rivals, his team mates and even his brother were unknown in Stewart's time, just like they were in Ickx or Moss' time. Drivers were dying regularly in those days, so they were not putting each others at risk deliberately. Now drivers can cause massive crash and multi car shunts and just get a slap on the wrist; before that was followed by attendance to funerals. That's the difference. 40 years ago, Guitierez would have burned to a crisp in his car after Maldonado T-boned him. In most circuit, leaving the track meant big troubles, now it's done on a regular basis!
Yeah it depends on how well the rest of Hamilton's career pans out. IMO it's pretty clear Hamilton is a more talented driver than Alonso, prior to and including this season, starting with his rookie year. I wasn't around to watch Senna or the others but I believe the current drivers are the pinnacle of the sport, true athletes both physically and mentally.
The number 1 fan of Nigel Mansell was Nigel Mansell. It was tough to listen to him complain about the 1992 Williams FW 14B, quite possibly the most dominant Formula 1 car ever.
And Frank Williams, who doesn't suffer fools lightly, told him where to go in no uncertain terms! Mansell signed his own death warrant in bad-mouthing the car that gave him the title. His F1 career came to an end.
