F1 ENI MAGYAR NAGYDÍJ 2012: RACE *** SPOILERS ***

Well, come on now. Schu has had some seriously crappy situations that are no fault of his own this year and all the experts agree Schu is driving better than Nico, and I believe they have the final word regarding Schu, not us armchair jockeys.


Despite my massive love for Senna, I would still put Schu in the '#1 ever' spot simply due to the fact that he is driving his German tail off at 43 years of age still proving he can hang with anyone in the world. His Monaco pole should not have been physically possible, that is such a stupidly difficult course and he outright owned everyone there. He has shown incredible speed this year, more than his first two years back and that is simply amazing at his age. We never had a chance to see what Senna could do in his older years so it's impossible to place him one way or the other. I just cannot see Ham, Button, Vettel, Alonso, or possibly even Senna at 43 years doing the same thing, no way.

 

Sir Ian of Campbell will eternally be known as 'The Gent'.

3700 miles and cross-border to make good on a wager I was very fortunate to win, he cannot have another moniker more appropriate....

Thank you Ian! I'll be enjoying the last bottle this evening....
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Come on people. Driver-error in pre-1995 Tamburello? No. Just no. Only if you stopped steering mid corner, which would be next to suicide.

and yes, the Merc is a turd. Total failure. If you have to explain why the car is good despite it's results, than you know there is something wrong.

 

I'd love to see a definition of "hang".

What he said.

That's why there is the WCC where MB are having their worst year stepping down from two times 4th to 5th position.

 

I don't disagree with you that the new car is way better than the old one... and believe me, it's no dig against Schumi (who is a much better driver than the car he's in, IMO). It's just that MB haven't seemed to have made any real progress this year. It started out promising, and they have gone nowhere. I respect and applaud your enthusiasm for the team, but I think you might be seeing things a bit wishfully. I would love nothing more than to see them on top next year, but I don't think it will happen... I have heard about the way they do things at MB which slows innovation, and I fear it may be true.

I hoped I was wrong at the start of this year, but they seem to be the team that had the most and turned into the least thus far.

 

I've been saying for years (Wolfgang5150 is my witness ) that MB is nothing more than another big car manufacturer like BMW, Jaguar, Toyota etc and they will never win the championship. Way too much bureaucrazy from the big company put upon the F1 team.

Just look at the stats:

2009 Brawn wins WDC and WCC as an independent "garagiste"
2010 MB takes over and the car drops to 4th
2011 4th
2012 5th

They are nothing more than a midfield team. Bernie thinks that too, which is why he isn't willing to give them the extra benefits/credit/$$$ he heaped upon the top teams. MB's bosses think otherwise, that's why they haven't signed Bernie's new Concorde agreement yet. They'll learn eventually.

 

hang

1a: to fasten to some elevated point without support from below : suspend
1b: to suspend by the neck until dead —often hanged in the past —often used as a mild oath <I'll be hanged>
1c: to fasten so as to allow free motion within given limits upon a point of suspension<hang a door>
1d: to adjust the hem of (a skirt) so as to hang evenly and at a proper height

2: to furnish with hanging decorations (as flags or bunting)

3: see Monaco 2012 - Schumacher outqualifying all the other kiddies...

4: to hold or bear in a suspended or inclined manner <hung his head in shame>

5: to apply to a wall <hang wallpaper>

6: to display (pictures) in a gallery

 

Ok, lets talk about Monaco:

MS outrun everybody else. No question.

But: Monaco is a special case. Only the very best normally (disclaimer now necessary for guys like Panis) score there. It is a *very* technical place and you need a lot of experience to be good there. That's precisely what MS has, being one of the few masters of Monaco.

Many drivers can go fast at Monaco, but if they make a mistake, it will be a costly one and so the guys duking it out for the WDC tone it down a bit. MS is not in the run for the WDC, he can take any risks he likes. In fact, he can even take gambles with rain setups, because if he outsmarts the field/gets lucky, he gets a podium and all his fans on here go nuts, but if he gets it wrong, just blame it on the MB and nothing happened (Canada 2011 comes to mind).

Also MS knew, he had a penalty, so if he isn't in the front, he is screwed at Monaco anyway. So with this nothing-to-loose attitude he takes a bonzai run and wins. Whereas others who knew that MS would be relegated anyhow, opted for a less risky lap around Monaco, knowing they "only" had to beat each other.

So yes, MS' fastest lap of Monaco was great, but you have to appreciate it in the context in which it happened. Taking it out of that and extrapolating that MS can beat the rest of the field based on that one lap, well, that'd be rather naive.

 

I like that post!

 

But by your own admission, the Benz was a 4th place car, careening towards the slow end of the grid with every passing race - and I agree.

Yet Schumi has taken that pig of a car and done some impressive things with it. Rosberg is no slouch, and while it's easy to point to the WDC standings and say MS isn't competitive, that ignores a lot of incidents (maybe mostly bad luck, maybe some MS' fault - but affecting race outcomes nonetheless) that would have him ranked a lot higher than he is.

It's apparent he's slowed down from his prime - that much is inarguable at this point. But he's not a backmarker, and not even a mid-fielder. He's still one of the faster guys... again, it wasn't long ago that Rosberg looked to be a Hamilton/Vettel/Alonso level talent (a year or two into F1).

 

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Never made that claim. My (and I think Ferraripilot's) point was that Monaco proved he can "hang with", not "beat" the rest of the field. In other words, he's still damn competetive.

Just because I put beer in your mouth doesn't mean you get to put words in mine...

 

In that sense I don't disagree with you. MS is good enough to challenge for the occasional podium. But he is not going to beat the top guys (Vettel, Alonso, Hamilton) on a consistent basis.

Which btw is what I said since he made his comeback: Occasional wins, yes. WDC, no chance in hell.

Why that distinction: When MS announced his comeback, there were many on here who started spouting things like "8th title for sure, wiping the floor with the young guns" etc etc.. That didn't happen and that won't happen.

 

It was freakish from the standpoint that he was hit in the head by a piece of suspension. I think also the way his car crashed at Tamburello was far from normal (i.e. the broken steering column/rear puncture theories).

He may have been a balls out driver, but his death was freakish...

 

I love Schu, but anybody on the other side of 35 knows that reflexes change and you also become keenly aware that you're not invulnerable. It's an inescapable fact of life, even for the greats.

 

Get real, you can try to spin this in this ridiculous direction but it only makes you look silly.

FYI: Hate to break it to you, but calling you a troll is far from a personal attack, it only refers to your posting habits in this F1 section, which have now been proven to be the definition of trolling. It is what it is, I have no idea what you're like in real life and have no desire to know. That said...

Begone, troll!

 

The car is more important than ever.

If MS had the same level of car as he had in 2001-2003, I have no doubt he would be walking away with the WDC. I bet he would have won it the year Kimi won it, and the year Massa lost it to Hamilton. Both years, the car was the best, but they just couldn't get things working together.

I think that if MS was in the Red Bull last year instead of Vettel, he'd have won the WDC there too - and likewise if he was in the BrawnGP instead of Button, he'd have smoked Barrichello (again) and won the WDC that year.

If the Benz of 2013 was as fast as the Red Bull of 2011? It would be a very tough fight between him and Rosberg... it would depend on who the car suited better, as well as luck.. but I wouldn't count Schumi out of the WDC in that circumstance, not by a long shot.

 

+1 on everything posted.

 

Regarding Michael Schumacher as a person... I look up to him and consider him a "hero" in the admiration sense of the word without question. Several reasons.

1) I remember reading an article where he was caught smoking a cigar. He said that he enjoys a post-win cigar, but he asked the journalist please not to print the picture because he was looked up to by lots of children, and did not want to be seen smoking. +respect

2) He was well known for giving Harley V-Rod motorcycles as gifts. He loved the bike himself and gave them as presents to others. His generosity is not often reported, but it exists in spades.

3) To the above point, didn't he donate more to the Tsunami relief fund that pretty much any other single person? It's one thing to be solemn or wear a patch on your F1 racing suit. But cutting that check speaks volumes.

4) Remember after his engine failure in his last year with Ferrari in the race he was leading and looking to clinch a final WDC? I was gutted, utterly gutted, as MS is my all time favorite driver. He went back to the pits, hugged and congratulated the team and told them all it was a good run, and not to beat themselves up over it. Class.

5) The man has won almost every record in all of F1. He is the winningest (hate that word) and most successful F1 driver ever to have walked on the planet. He has earned enough to last him 10 lifetimes. And what is he doing? He's out there having a blast, doing what he loves. And despite all the criticism, hatred, comments and whining tossed his way - he still smiles every time you see him, and is having a blast. Anyone on this forum would do well to get on their knees and kiss the ground for being able to be in that position. I can't even fathom being the undisputed best of all time and keeping doing it because it's what you love. Major respect.

 

I remember this like it was yesterday. I, too, was very upset when that engine let go but after I saw Schumacher with his team I couldn't believe it. That really made an impression on me. Then in Brazil we were treated to what it truly means to never give up.

 

I truly believe that I will be telling my grandkids that I got to see Schumacher race. I know you're not a huge Hamilton fan, but it was interesting that in Canada (the first race I was at after MS' return), the two drivers who got the most cheers were Hamilton (who won the race), followed very closely (and maybe equally) by Schumacher. The next was Alonso, a distant third.

People love MS. He has done more for the sport of F1 than probably any other driver ever... even if what he did for someone was cause them to be so frustrated with his constant success that they loved to see him lose.

His accomplishments off the track stand on their own... he plays soccer (well), karts (well), raced motorcycles (well). He is a thoroughbred competitor.

Without sounding too much like I am reaching for his jock, I really am sure that if we are lucky enough to be around in 30, 40 or 50 years, we will be telling our grandkids that we got to see Schumacher racing. Just like people nowadays talk about Fangio.

If one thinks back to Michael Jordan's career - do people say "yeah he was really good, but he really killed it with those failed comebacks"? Do people say that about Mike Tyson or Oscar De La Hoya? Or Roger Clemens? Or Larry Bird? Or Magic Johnson?

Their legacies are all intact. People don't LOL about how they performed at the time they quit their respective sports and say "they weren't as great as they thought, when they finally quit <X> could have beaten them!". Those kind of statements are redundant and obvious... I am pretty sure I could kick Muhammad Ali's ass in a fight today. But so what? People talk about the whole sum of one's achievements and they remember their best.

Which is why MS is exactly right to be doing what he loves, as the most successful F1 driver ever, having a great time, loving the travel, the press, the competition. Most fortunate man alive, IMO. Well, maybe second only to the guy who's waking up next to Kate Upton!

 

See? Is it so hard to read/write respectful posts? He's achieved more and done more for people than most of us will do in our entire lives. That goes for most of the drivers that get the hate on here.

 

Well stated! He is simply an all-time great in the same vein as Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, and Tiger Woods. History will smile upon his legacy (regardless of what happens with MB)