True on paper but I think things were a lot more complex than that. I do not recall the exact position at the time - but maybe there was simply no competitive seat availible. It was known that Alonso was going to McLaren I think, but not who his team mate would be - but then again would a McLaren seat alongside Alonso have been viable (with number "2" on his car!)after everything MS had at Ferrari? I think not. Renault to work for Briattori? MS would have thought there must be a reason why Alonso wants out of Renault & why he thought McMerc would be a better bet. Maybe he wouldn't want to work for Flavio again..... ...and then there was a whole loyalty thing for Ferrari and the pride of not appearing to have to leave "his" team. In short 101 reasons why retirment might have seemed his only realistic choice at the time....
But we also don't know anything about the dynamics of when Heidfeld ran, either. I also keep in mind we see 'great times' from teams all the time - prior to the season - and then the season starts and those teams with preseason 'great times' are still in the back of the grid. PS - No, I don't expect MS to be SLOW by any means, I am just saying don't read too much into it.
It's also not likely that the FIA would have aloud him to drive the F60. Rather, did he not drive the 2007/8 challenger?
There's no way I'd be posting a thread with the title "He's fast" based on the evidence given. Heck even if that Heidfield time was real, being over 1 second slower is completely off the pace. Particularly because Heidfield is hardly F1's best driver. Count 1 second guys ... cars at 150mph go a very long way in 1 second so he is many, many, many metres behind. Even amature club races would be pissed being 1 second off the pace. Yes MS will get faster, but lets not forget the very first time he sat in a F1 car he nearly broke the circuits lap record ... that was a Jordan and he had the team so worried they nearly called him in. My memory has faded but it was along those lines, because they had told him to just take it easy for a few laps and straight away he was flying. Now 20 years later it takes laps to bed him (according to some here apparently, because these times compared to the real GP2 drivers are way off the pace, even for wet conditions ... 17 seconds slower is surely excessive but somebody will correct me if I'm wrong ) in in a tried and well and truly tested car ... I'd be worried myself. I hope he was just lapping to test his neck, etc. Pete
My understanding of GP2 is that they are a spec car, and have been for years. Thus might be a brand new car but same old settings will work, etc. [EDIT]Okay reread the article and it hints that they may have changed the car ... but I again say this thread is way premature. You can read between the lines that MS was just playing about to see if he still had it. He was not competitive and not intending to be.[/EDIT] Pete
He did not try the car out with slick tires yet because of the weather. If they weather is better tomorrow, he will have a full go of it.
OP said heidfelt's time was a record (which is now regarded as BS), so of all the nice weather days spain has each year (jerez has over 300 sunny days a year IIRC)...one must assume they are in good conditions. Anyhow, the times where all useless, it was a brand new car schumacher has to develop for the GP2 boys...the weather was useless. /thread.
sure, but the real point psk and myself were making is that you can't take the times and declare that he's fast. if anything (if the numbers were right, dry conditions, etc), the times were slow. no one is faulting him for not being faster though. hell his times might be absolutely amazing. we just can't tell that.
To be fair to Schumacher... is there anybody here who thought the F60 lived up to the Ferrari name? All the best, Andrew.
Latest news. Schumey was out on slicks today for 53 laps until about 10:30. He then did about 20 more laps but testing was ended short one hour due to conditions. The car he is setting up has a very different rear suspension than any other GP2 car and has taken quite a bit of time to set up correctly which is partially what the testing has been all about. There has been talk of a 1.26.7 lap time, but it cannot be confirmed.
So you're seriously trying to tell Me that with Schumacher being "forced into retirement" against his will, he would not of gone anywhere else, competitive seat or not, to continue racing?. Sorry, no sale here!. Any one of the other teams would have been more than happy to have him in their team, especially with the publicity and sponsorship he would bring with him and he would have taken great delight in showing the world that Ferrari had deserted him. "In short 101 reasons why retirment might have seemed his only realistic choice at the time...", yes, the main one being it's what he wanted at the time.
Interesting to see that the 2011 spec GP2 chassis has a lot of the aero bits that have been in banned in F1 for 2009 I.E. Barge boards and winglets
Schuberth are still developing his 2010 prototypes. In the meantime, he'll use the 2009 version. A bit weird. He's dressed like the Stig, red helmet in a different colour car... back to the topic : IMHO, the times now don't matter. He's built to drive an F1 car, not a GP2 car
"Schumacher's best lap of the day was a 1m24.621s, four tenths slower than the record set by Kamui Kobayashi at the Spanish track in October, 2008" http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/80893
I like what i see, I so hope for the Mercedes to be competitive, and see the kaiser whoop some a$$ once again !
