Shumacher

schumi84 · 29 Apr 2010 at 21:14

I think the potential improvements made to the car for Spain will give us a bit more of an indication as to where he stands IMO. Not so much where he qualifies/finishes in comparison to everyone else, but more where he is in comparison to Rosberg.

Nico has done a fantastic job so far this season, being in the right place at the right time and making the most of changeable situations. Not going to try and justify Michael's poor start to the season as being purely down to the car/bad luck etc but i genuinely think it is going to take him a bit longer to re-tune in his race-brain.

hsiaolc · 4 May 2010 at 01:58

Merlin5 said:
Anyone here think Schumi needs a few races, perhaps even till next season before he shows who's boss again, that he's simply rusty? Or do you think he'll never be the world beater again that he once was? Could it be that if he was still with ferrari that he would do better or is Mercedes GP as good?

HIs time is over. He needs a super car to even have a chance of getting to the top. With the performance he is pulling off he won't be going anywhere.

sunama · 5 May 2010 at 19:22

hsiaolc said:
He needs a super car to even have a chance of getting to the top. With the performance he is pulling off he won't be going anywhere.

He will also need a slow team-mate who will be happy to slow down to allow MS to finish in front of him.

There is no point in giving him a super car if his team-mate keeps finishing ahead of him.

In the first 4 races, no driver has beaten is his team-mate as spectactularly as Rosberg has beaten MS.

Randomface74 · 5 May 2010 at 19:37

I don't think it's anything to do with Michael. I think it's just all the other drivers being leeter than they were 5 years ago.

Glaucus · 5 May 2010 at 19:57

billysielu said:
I don't think it's anything to do with Michael. I think it's just all the other drivers being leeter than they were 5 years ago.

I think it has a lot of reason, all pulling together to trounce him.

A) he is old
B) he has not raced in f1 for a few years
C) the cars have changed a lot
D) the new drivers coming through have been trained since age of 6 or so
E) he does not have the team and lead drive like he used to, he isn't in the top car.

Some of those he can probably overcome, winning races maybe but I don't think he will ever dominate like he used to.

sunama · 5 May 2010 at 20:29

AcidHell, most of your points I do agree with, but how do you expect him to win races, given that he isn't as fast as Rosberg? Are you suggesting that Rosberg will be asked to move aside to allow MS to win?

Glaucus · 5 May 2010 at 20:34

sunama said:
AcidHell, most of your points I do agree with, but how do you expect him to win races, given that he isn't as fast as Rosberg? Are you suggesting that Rosberg will be asked to move aside to allow MS to win?

I think if he stays for a couple of season he could win races. Maybe even end of this season. it depends if he can over come the problems and what merc does to the car.

Just because his team mate is faster doesn't mean he can't win races and doesn't mean his team mate will always be faster.

arknor · 5 May 2010 at 21:09

no driver has beaten is his team-mate as spectactularly as Rosberg has beaten MS.

jenson is doing a fine job on hamilton

sunama · 5 May 2010 at 21:56

arknor said:
jenson is doing a fine job on hamilton

Button leads Hamilton by 11 points.

Rosberg on the other hand, leads his team-mate by 40 points - the biggest points difference between team-mates of all F1 teams in 2010.

No contest.

PS. I do agree though, that Button has done a great job during these first 4 races. He has won 2 out of 4 races, in a car which is not the best and more to the point, has so far outperformed Hamilton.

Dave M · 5 May 2010 at 22:33

sunama said:
PS. I do agree though, that Button has done a great job during these first 4 races. He has won 2 out of 4 races, in a car which is not the best and more to the point, has so far outperformed Hamilton.

Not to be surprised, he is the world champion - I doubt Hamilton expected to get an easy ride of his new team mate but I'm sure he'll pull some back on Button soon enough. I know I shouldn't but I'd love it if they knocked each other off the track and came to blows in the garage

Schumacher is fairly green and in a car he doesn't like - no driver does well in a car that doesn't suit him. I'd not be surprised to see a quantum leap in performance if Mercedes can put a car under him that suits his style.

JRS · 5 May 2010 at 22:36

Once again sunama - Schumacher has been driving with a patched-up car with a fairly glaring design fault.

In Bahrain, his first race back after three seasons away, he finished within four seconds of his team-mate. And then in Australia, his car gets clobbered at Turn 1. For whatever reason, Mercedes haven't replaced that chassis until now. They've admitted that they screwed up on the weight balance anyway, which won't exactly be helping a guy who always liked his cars designed around his particular handling preference (hence the trouble that several team-mates had over the years even keeping their car on the island).

So far, the only 'straight' fight that Rosberg and Schumacher have had has been Bahrain. And they finished very closely (about 4sec?), despite Schumacher having had three seasons away from a discipline of motorsport that is so complex everyone believes it to be the absolute pinnacle. If your sole basis for saying Schumacher has lost it is his first race back plus one with a broken car and two with a lashed-up starting money special....

I notice Mark Webber has said that folks ought to judge Schumacher after the Monaco GP. Will certainly be interesting. I for one can't wait to see some of these questions that are floating around actually getting answered!

Duke · 6 May 2010 at 08:33

JRS said:
I notice Mark Webber has said that folks ought to judge Schumacher after the Monaco GP. Will certainly be interesting. I for one can't wait to see...

...his latest parking technique on track

arknor · 6 May 2010 at 09:20

Telescopi said:
Not to be surprised, he is the world champion - I doubt Hamilton expected to get an easy ride of his new team mate but I'm sure he'll pull some back on Button soon enough. I know I shouldn't but I'd love it if they knocked each other off the track and came to blows in the garage

Schumacher is fairly green and in a car he doesn't like - no driver does well in a car that doesn't suit him. I'd not be surprised to see a quantum leap in performance if Mercedes can put a car under him that suits his style.

no one was expecting button to beat hamilton most people were assuming he would get slaughtred button wasnt really that much faster than rubens a lot of the time and thats a man whos used to beeing beat for the majority of his career

dannyjo22 · 6 May 2010 at 09:30

JRS said:
, which won't exactly be helping a guy who always liked his cars designed around his particular handling preference (hence the trouble that several team-mates had over the years even keeping their car on the island).

Exactly, people are not looking at the obvious in an atempt to desperately talk about MS failing. At no point in his career has MS liked anything other than a loose front end that he has to make a gazillion corrections to in a corner.

Right now he has a car that has a completely planted front end, which is what Jenson needs more than anyone. Which makes Brawns failing to re-sign jenson all the more curious.

IF Merc decide to build that car to MS's liking I doubt Rosberg will have much joy with it. If this was the old days and MS could have had a million test sessions the car would have started to his liking, now they are having to do it at a gp.

I think he's being written off way way too early.

lazer46 · 6 May 2010 at 09:32

Can't see Schumy getting to the top again. He had his time. Better drivers around now with real determination and will to win. I think he is going through the paces, thinking he is still the 'champ'.

sunama · 6 May 2010 at 10:19

arknor said:
no one was expecting button to beat hamilton most people were assuming he would get slaughtred button wasnt really that much faster than rubens a lot of the time and thats a man whos used to beeing beat for the majority of his career

What I've seen from Button in the first 4 races is that he has incredibly cool headed in pretty much all situations. As a result his decisions under pressure, while on track, tend to be good. This is Hamilton's big weakness, in that he is hot headed and as a result prefers to allow his team to make the pit strategy decisions on his behalf.

Button, during his career, has also shown that he is immensely consistent (a fantastic quality for a No.2 driver, providing you have a No.1 driver of high enough quality, which I think Hamilton is). From what I recall, he made no mistakes last year. Hamilton on the other hand, can blow hot and cold. We saw this in his poor qualifying performance at Australia this year.

In outright speed and racecraft though, I dont think anybody beats Hamilton.

One thing I've noticed is that when Hamilton is far behind in the field, drivers and their engineers, during the race, are more worried about Hamilton overtaking them, than the drivers directly behind. This is a huge compliment to Hamilton.

The net result of Button's cool headedness and ability to make better strategic decisions VS Hamilton's outright speed and racecraft is that Button is leading Hamilton by 11 points (after some wet races), while Hamilton has already amassed a massive number of competitive overtakes in only 4 races.