February 25, 2008...11:57 am
Did Michael Schumacher quit F1 too soon?
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Michael Schumacher is testing for Ferrari today as the new F1 season is just three weeks away.
It’s not the first time he’s come back from retirement to sample the latest Formula 1 car from Ferrari.
Is he missing the sport? Does he regret quitting in 2006? Would you like to see him make a comeback?
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14 Comments
February 25, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Schumacher is undoubtedly the absolute king and would still win another champ in 2008.
February 25, 2008 at 2:31 pm
He didn’t leave soon enough for me… I can’t stand the cheating German twit; can’t he just get lost and leave F1 to proper sportsmen. I hope Kimi wipes the floor with him in testing.
February 26, 2008 at 3:55 am
I don’t know, apart from some well known ethical lapses and misbehaviours (which affects some champions) he, in fact, quitted quite early, and I think even now being 39 yrs old he could stand a fight with the “new” guys
February 26, 2008 at 1:39 pm
the greatest ever got back into an f1 car last year and jan this year went quickest by a second ! as for wobbletastics comments , typical bitter british f1 fan probaly thinks damon hill was equal to michael !! yes he had an agressive streak so did senna the second best ever after michael.a few examples apart from 7 world championships , spain 1995 stuck in 5th gear for 50 laps finished 2nd in the race lapping only 0.8 of a second than the winner (hill) who had all 6 gears. Spa 1995 started 16th on grid , in the rain satyed out on slicks finished 1st hill had trouble passing him on full wet tyres!!!.spain 1996 in a very slow ferrari in rain lapped the whole field to win the man is a racing god !! there will never be another and and when i was racing i meet him on 2 occasions and a very polite and humble human being he was
February 26, 2008 at 1:43 pm
He’s too frightened of Kimi to come back. He only quit because Ferrari wouldn’t give him priority over Kimi. Good riddance to him. If you can’t race on equal terms then don’t race at all.
February 26, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Wobbletastic.. you dont know what you are talking about!!!
M/S will always be the ruler of F1 for a VERY long time.
1 million a race and the focus to match, look at Jenson Button and all the others, and you can easily see from the Playboy lifestyle that the money went straight to their heads and their talent suffered!
-yes Lewis hamilton has even more talent. But and its a big but! i just hope his dad is capable of keeping his feet on the ground. You seen how much ‘bling’ he is wearing lately? …another Beckham i think - which is a pitty!
February 26, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Yeah I know he was a good driver… what I’m saying is that I have never enjoyed watching him drive or win because it was always in the back of my mind that he would happily knock someone off to secure a points advantage (and then talk his way out of it instead of owning up to it like a man in the way that Senna did) or break the rules knowing that the FIA love Ferrari too much to dish out any punishment to them. Another thing is that he would rather win on pit strategy instead of out on the track; not exactly the mark of a racer is it? He has to be the most unsporting sportsman ever, if he was as good as people say he is, he wouldn’t have to resort to cheating.
February 27, 2008 at 5:15 am
ha ! Hamilton is fast but is playing the media game, giving what they want, showing up and “blinging” like a rapper and so if he doesn’t change soon, probably will be the next Button (Jenson’s “MTV Diary” back in 2006 was useless to say the least)
February 28, 2008 at 4:58 am
The problem with Schumacher was not what he did, but the way he did it. It is a shame because I think he was talented, but never really allowed himself to be tested because he always wanted things in his favour before he began. I don’t think he ever raced anyone fairly.
The way he treated his team mates - he always had access to their telemetry, they never had access to his (ask Johnny Herbert, Rubens Barichello, Eddie Irvine about that). He also got preferential access to the car for testing, and usually had it a few days (at least) earlier than anyone else so he could set the car up his way, and choose parts that fitted his driving style, not theirs (but they had to use these parts too).
When he did race, he took gamesmanship beyond the game, and did cheat - not in a “clever” way like Senna or Prost, but in a kind of petulant little boy sort of way. What he did to Damon Hill he also did to Jacques Villeneuve. In races he drove dangerously, pushing drivers towards walls without worry (ask his brother, Ralf about Imola, or Giancarlo Fisichella about Brazil).
He was the first driver ever to get away with weaving to prevent following cars from overtaking him - because the FIA do not penalise Ferrari as severely as they do other teams - and sadly this precedent has become the standard for new drivers, which sadly makes the racing less exciting today.
It is a sad part of the human condition that anyone who wins always draws blind admirers, no matter how the winning was done. But to me, you don’t prove yourself by stacking the deck. Well, only if you want to prove how good a cheat you are.
I guess Schumacher did that quite well.
March 2, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Very well put fifthdecade! You’ve shown M Scumacher in his true light. I always get the impression that people who support him are simply glory chasers, who dont appreciate his devious ways.
March 4, 2008 at 3:25 pm
fifth decade , well your “facts” where did you get them from ?? press or books or heresay ? testing was done by all drivers in all his teams luca B the ferrari test driver and massa when he was testing do most of the car development and drive the cars way before any other driverweaving was out lawed by the FIA due to 2 crashes neither involving schumacher , he and barichello shared telementry in testing and at race weekends fact my good friend was rubens race engineer ,any how about his deck being stacked ?? driving a car with 100 less horse power than hill stuck in 5th gear for the whole race lapping 0.7 of a second slower in 5 th gear as my previous comment ,one last thing the only driver from 1994 to 2004 to win a championship in a car not designed by a mr a newey !!! mr m schumacher , oh and just to prove his driving 1990 merc sports car 4 laps out on the pace of the regular drivers and able to go further on a tank of fuel in long distance races than any of his team mates must have had a fuel tank up his shirt eh fifth decade, get your facts right , rather than read a bit of press mate , blind admirers no crictics blinded by fiction rather than fact, oh and senna clever gamesmanship driving into prost at 180 mph first bend in front of us all , what planet you on mate schumacher a driving god and a winner !!!!!!!!
March 7, 2008 at 4:30 am
Even being brasilian, I don’t get Senna’s lack of sportsmanship, mainly noticed when he ran inside Prost in Suzuka 1990, that was his “apex” in terms of intrack misbehaviour (we could mention another examples, for instance Monaco 1987 when he snatched the pole, and stayed inside the track with a blown engine spraying oil all over the track) despite all of his glories, there in 1990 he showed his character, and I’m not defending any other driver, just saying sometimes people “erase” their memories and forget about the others
Schumi was one of the best, maybe he was superior in some areas where the others were not, and vice versa
Anyway the modern era F1 drivers are a fair amount behind in terms of pure talent and bravery compared to the pre 80’s drivers, noticeably the ones who raced in the 1936-1939 GP machines (imagine yourself running at 210 mph in a car fitted with those narrow, rudimentary tires, without any protection) and the others who raced from 1950 to late 70’s
May 16, 2008 at 4:12 pm
i think Schumacher was absolute rubish to the F1 racing
June 6, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Lewis hamilton might become the next M/S
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