As people who read my blog will know, Michael Schumacher has had in terms of results and competitiveness since the disastrous 2005 season and his first podium-less season since he joined the sport in 1991.He came back after the potential of turning up in 2009 replacing the injured Massa with a fully healed up neck, the World Constructors Champions and the Number 3 on his car. Hopes were high that he could take it to this newer generation and show them how to be a champion. On the whole, due to a car that wasn't fast enough often enough and (at least at the start of the year) rusty hand to hand combat skills which would limit his progress.
It wasn't the best of seasons for the 91 Grand Prix winning 7 times World Champion by any stretch of the imagination and there were some moments when I feared his comeback might be placed under threat:
- He was not strong in the very early part of the season, China being the primary option when his car was being treated (Brundle's words, not mine) like the back end of a donkey.
- Signapore was simply a messy weekend. A track which team-mate Nico Rosberg excels at in a car which was not as fast as the Renault or the Williams nevermind the Bulls, Mclaren's or Ferrari's. He then waited too long to stop and dropped (with Kobayashi) further down the field and then did what German drivers have done a lot this year, and went to war with the Sauber's and come off best as he has accidents with both of them over the course of the race and overall finished poorly.
- The Canadian Grand Prix where he basically hit anything that moved within 10 meters of him (Massa, both Force India's and Kubica) added to a bad qualifying performance created one of the worst race weekends I have seen the man drive (topped only by China '05...which was actually difficult to watch) and for the first and only i thought Schumacher would either leave or be dropped for Nick Heidfeld (before he left for Sauber).
- And the less said about the Hungarian Grand Prix the better. I can not defend what he did then.
It was correct that the BBC talk about those moments but the attacks on Schumacher, particularly Eddie Jordan after Singapore were harsh and (in my view) not entirely justified. Yes he had a few stinkers this year: Who doesn't have the occasional bad moment? Didn't Vettel hit his team-mate in Turkey? Wasn't Hamilton an idiot in Italy? Didn't Alonso need to cut a corner to overtake Kubica in Silverstone? People have bad days at the office, it is inevitable so why they were more scathing of Schumacher than anyone else (apart from Liuzzi, Buemi and Yamamoto, who are complete F***ing morons, all 3 of them) is beyond and seems a tad unfair.
But then again they needed a story to talk about in the press because the epic 5 driver war for the title clearly wasn't interesting enough for them...
It also didn't help that over the course of the season, looking set for strong results he became unlucky:
- In Monaco he had a good race to seventh, jumping Rosberg in the pit stops and then after the safety car came in on the last lap there was no indication that there was a rule against overtaking after the safety car line on the final lap which meant he pulled off a genius move on Alonso in Anthony Nouges (now how many of you have ever seen someone do that before outside of video games?) only to be penalised by a rule which was not clear and also contradicted by the messages from race control.
- In Valencia, he was on course for what could have been a stunning podium but had he got caught out by the pit lane rule and proceeded to fall to the back of the field where he basically took part in a glorified test session driving rather quickly up to the back of the back markers and then change tires and see what his car was actually made of.
- In Abu Dhabi he was lucky to remain with his face on his head and in one piece after that horrible accident with Liuzzi but after a strong performance all weekend he looked set for some good points if it were not for that crash.
Then again there were also some moments of pure class which showed that the man still has most of the strong stuff that made him one of the most successful, famous and spectacular sportsmen the world has ever seen:
- I once again point you to his pass on Fernando Alonso at the last corner at Monaco, how he found the space for 2 cars side by side with the rest of the field bunched around him I can never fathom. It was a genius piece of driving (even if it was technically illegal).
- His drives to 5th in Spain and 4th in Turkey were a good sign also, while the Mercedes was a minute down the road at the end of the race it did show a sign that he could get the most out of the car on certain tracks. And his drive defending against Jenson Button was a joy to watch as whatever the Defending Champion did the Silver Baron had it covered.
- His race at Spa was excellent considering the risk factor of the stratergy and his grid position. Both he and Rosberg drove great races and aside from the head-ache they gave Ross Brawn and Nick Fry it was great to see the pair of them take each other one. Yes Rosberg got ahead of him in the end but Schumacher drove a better overall race on the circuit he first came to the world as a Clutch destroying young'un who put the Jordan 7th on the grid in his first laps in the car.
- In Japan he took Barrichello around the outside of the chicane after 130R, if I remember correctly the last person he tried to do that to was Takuma Sato in 2003 and that took his front wing off. That was a stunning overtake but Nico Rosberg stole the limelight while trying to be outrageous and overtake Buemi around the outside of 130R. Rosberg may well have gotten ahead of him with a better strategy but Schumacher was easily quicker than him at almost ever point, was glued to his gearbox and must have been clenching his butt-cheeks quite a lot when Rosberg went off in the opening part of the lap but went on to another good result.
- He was awesome for the entire of Korea, his insight by going deliberately off the road during the safety car periods to test what he could do and the simplicity and effectiveness while passing 2 of the best drivers in the grid in the form of Button and Kubica on the way to a very impressive 4th place showed that the man does still have what it takes in the mental department (more on this later). This was his best race of the year by some margin and a sign that if Mercedes get their second car right, the championship could be contested by as many as 8 or 9 drivers for large parts of it.
Right now I'm about to sound biased for a while so for all of you people who are not specially big fans of Schumacher you may as well either have not read at all and should stop reading now, or complain to me later on facebook or something:
To be honest this year, in my view, I was not particularly bothered about his results or how good he was or how good his car was. Yes obviously I want the Baron to be up there winning races, challenging for wins, pulling of great passes and being a part of the championship picture but this year was the year I most enjoyed F1 since before Kimi Raikonnen started winning (I dislike him so very much). It was just seeing Schumacher coming back, the money he would generate for the sport just by being there, watching his interviews, watching the infamous red helmet be taken around in a fancy new silver container (weird way to put it but you get what I mean) and hearing Martin Brundle call him 'The Silver Baron' made me feel like I was watching F1 back when I was a little boy. Schumacher, for all his faults and stupid moments like he had in Hungary this year, is still to be the best sportsman I have had the pleasure of watching in my lifetime.
I started watching F1 in 1996 and do you know, amongst the Dominance of Hill and Villeneuve and the wacky Jean Alesi who caught my eye? A short, slightly cold looking German man driving a Ferrari which was rubbish. I had no idea who he was truly until I saw him win in Spain. It was at that moment when I realised that this guy was something particularly special.
It was then when I became a worshipper at the altar of Schumacher. I was never patriotic, I wanted him to win ahead of Hill in 1996. I wanted him to destroy Williams in 1997 and I just thought that from 1998-2006, despite the stupid driving moments and the pig of a car he had in 2005, and how sometimes Ferrari favoured him way too much, that he was simply the man to beat at all times.
So to those of you who will undoubtedly say I am a testicle-lacking fan boy I am not. He is not the be all and end all of my time with the sport. There are certain things he has done, (Adelaide 1994, Jerez 1997, Hungary 2010, Monaco 2006 etc...) that I can not and will not even try and defend. He was, and still might be, an arrogant, aggressive, cold heartless Bastard of a man who was easier to dislike than any man since Senna and anyone before Lewis Hamilton arrived and drove Fernando Alonso to complete insanity.
On top of that people will automatically say 'oooh Schumacher had it easy, he didn't have to race against Senna, Mansell, Prost, blah blah blah...' and while they are 3 greats of F1 history I watch drives like Spain '96, Hungary '98, USA '03 and France '04 and I just sit there and think to myself that Michael Schumacher is the greatest driver to exist.
And that right there is why he should stick through all 3 years of his contract in my view...
Because I think he can be that man again.
