In praise of… Michael Schumacher
Michael Schumacher: a masterpiece of defensive driving in China. Photo by Darren Heath
I never thought I’d look down and see my fingers composing the sentence that makes up the headline of this piece. Nevertheless, since so many munchkins out there are heaping unqualified criticism upon Michael Schumacher’s ageing shoulders, someone ought to point out some balancing positives.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that during a drearily slow news month (when the most interesting thing anyone could find to talk about in print was where the wing mirrors ought to go, I knew it was time to head to the bar), Schumacher’s woeful results in the opening rounds should propel him somewhat prematurely into the firing line. Certainly his overall pace in the understeering MGP-W01 has been disappointingly ordinary, although you have to wonder how the Mercedes designers managed to conjure a chassis whose natural balance is so diametrically opposed to that of the cars that delivered him seven world championships.
So, has Michael Schumacher lost it? Speed-wise, until (or unless) Mercedes GP equips him with a ‘pointier’ car, we may never know. But last Sunday, in China, he demonstrated that his formidable racecraft is as sharp as ever. Even as he slid down the order, his dogged defence of every lost position was so mesmerising that I couldn’t wait to see it again.
Viewing all this through a 600mm lens was Formula 1’s best photographer, Darren Heath; as you can see on his blog this week, he and I see eye to eye. Regardless of where Schumacher finished on Sunday, his was a marvellous display of defensive driving. He knew the weaknesses of his car (principally a lack of traction, brought about by shifting the ballast forward to get the front end working more to his liking) and ensured that his adversaries couldn’t take advantage of them.
As Darren writes, there is an art to defensive driving:
It’s all about simple yet fundamental factors: judging your competitor’s speed and trajectory; where the grip is (and isn’t); your braking in to the corner relative to the acceleration out; and, surely, in the art of both passing and being passed the failure to slow your assailant down to your speed (so that you remain in control) is a cardinal sin.
That was the key. Watch the race again and see how Schumacher – fairly, and with exquisite precision – placed his car so as to neutralise each opponent’s speed advantage. It was textbook stuff.
*Apologies for the paucity of updates recently. I’ve been hellishly busy on several projects at once (the old curse of the freelancer; you can never say “no”), and the deadline for my second book is looming. More on that, and other things, in the coming weeks…
Brilliant post, It was a joy to watch that Schumacher vs Hamilton battle. He may not be up to speed yet but he certainly knew how to defend his position against one of the most aggressive drivers in Formula One.
Perhaps because the car was designed more with Jenson in mind than Michael…
Very true – especially in his battle with Lewis.
But defensive driving is just one part of the driver’s package. Extracting the most speed out of it is another – and that’s something Rosberg is doing much better than Michael right now.
Stuart, would you know what Rosberg’s car preference is in comparison to Michael’s preference for pointy/oversteery?
@Journeyer
Sadly not. Never got round to asking him – must have been lulled into a state of torpor by all those years of him qualifying ninth, finishing ninth and setting ninth fastest lap…
@Stuart C
You’re too funny.
Well, has Nico’s performances this season made you take more notice of him? Perhaps enough to find out more?
Nice to see you are getting full value from the Schumacher brand rose tinted spectacles Stuart.
I seem to remember reams being written about Schumacher’s ability to drive round any car problem and even on occasion reading how he drove his car like a rally car to overcome a handling issue. The press almost had me believing that he was soe kind of Jim Clark, Gilles Villeneuve or Colin McRae who could get speed out of any old heap while apparently doing everything wrong. Seems his ability in that area has been much exaggerated.
All of his adversaries did get past and while he did put up a stern defence on occasions he didn’t hold anyone back for more than a couple of laps. Not exactly Gilles at Jarama in 1981 keeping 4 faster cars behind him for the whole race.
For me there are two things that made Schumacher successful before; his ability to drive absolutely on the limit lap after lap and Brawn’s ability to find fuel strategies that gave him an empty piece of track to do that. The latter is no longer an option and the former seems to have departed. If his team mate was Lewis Hamilton I could understand him being so much slower than him but is there anyone who believes that Nico Rosberg is really that fast?
Who would have thought that someone as vanila as Nico would turn out to be such a huge pain in the neck?
i’m shocked! i see that rencken gave schumi both barrels today, but i don’t see why we should cut the old man any slack?
if heidy was getting his arse kicked by nico in this manner we’d have been calling for a change long before china and if nico is as good as michael is making him look, that’ll make nakajima positively awesome. no?
@Journeyer
Accreditation permitting, I’d like to find out. That’s the great thing about F1; new storylines and new lines of enquiry every year. Not much news around at the moment though…
@Steven Roy
As a Scotsman you ought to appreciate getting the full value from something! Maybe I should take them back to Specsavers.
Not in the slightest. Mind you, we’ll never see the likes of that race again; the cars are all to broadly similar ability. The days of cars that handled like a barn door but had massively more grunt than anybody else are gone.
@mr. c.
What Heidy needs is a shave.
I despised the “old” Michael for his tactics of barging people off the road, getting a contract that stops his team mate from beating him, whilst having a car 3s faster than everyone else.
However I actually quite like the “new” Michael. He genuinely seems to be enjoying himself, seems quite funny and chatty in interviews, hasn’t resorted to dirty tactics (yet?) despite having to do *alot* of defending and was brave enough to go to Mercedes without the safety of No.1 contract against the highly rated Rosburg.
I don’t think Michael has really lost “it”. I’d argue he never really had “it” in the first place (to the extent everyone says and the history books would indicate).
The main difference now is that he no longer enjoys the advantage of massive testing and a car that’s massively faster than everyone else, so it looks like he’s lost his ability. He’s quick, but he’s never been as good as everyone thinks, and don’t get me started on his rainmaster reputation, that’s a multi-page thread in it’s own right!
To be honest, I fully expected Schumacher to wipe the floor with Rosberg.
He might yet, but I think many of the advantages Schumacher once took advantage of no longer exist.
He’s been a grafter his whole life, what made him special was his ability to constantly improve, to soak everything up and to take advantage of it.
I think/(hope) in Barcelona we’ll see a much more competitive Michael. What his defensive driving shows, is his racecraft is still fine. He needs to discover how to extract the most out of the tyres.
A lot of people are being very quick to push Schumacher down, but I think we dramatically underestimate the impact of tyres on performance. Look at how Alonso struggled on the 07 Bridgestones, someone who honed himself on Michelins. Alsono has no clearly worked it out, but Kimi Raikkonen, never really managed to do it.
Michael wont take a couple seasons to get it, but he’s got so much catching up to do and if he can get a nose ahead of Rosberg by the end of the season, I think, that will be a remarkable achievement. That should be his target.
but that’s such a lowly target. heidfeld could be in the car achieving exactly that, now. a bit of a waste of a seat, isn’t it?
@mr. c.
to be fair, it’s no guarantee that Heidfeld would beat Rosberg. Nico’s form now is better than ever, and Nick won’t necessarily beat him so easily.
that said, you’re right – it’s a lowly target. i’ve said it before – this comeback has only one goal: to win the championship. the way i see it, anything less than that would be a failure. and when you can’t even beat your teammate – the only guy out there in the same equipment as you – what chance do you have of winning a race, never mind a championship?
fair point.
You get the difference between Rosberg and Schumacher in all other teams (except McLaren this year) and no one would batt an eyelid. But it’s Schumacher and therefore he must have ‘lost it’.
It’s an extremely short list of drivers that have been away from F1 for an extended period of time and been bang on the pace straight away.
Brilliant entry. I for one was never much of a Schumacher fan, however I was impressed as I saw he was returning to fight for Mercedes. My feeling was that this is not a matter of ego, it is just a man driven by his passion.
We will all celebrate his 92nd victory, he deserves it so much.
Cheers.
Apparently Sir Stirling Moss disagrees and says Schumacher is probably past it.
“Michael’s greatest contribution was bringing English engineers to Ferrari,” said Moss.