Schumacher Announces Retirement...

[By-Tor]

What do you think? I think Ferrari got the best driver in the sport.

Kimi will have big boots to fill though. But I think he can do it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport...one/5332710.stm

[castlemaine]

A little embarrassed I didn't see this before. Why is he retiring? I guess seven is enough.

[leitztozeiss]

I think it were just Michael's choice, he would not have retired. Sad day.

[r11co]

I think it were just Michael's choice, he would not have retired. Sad day.

I agree. Michael Schumacher was painted into a corner over this one. Ferrari had signed Raikonnen already, Massa has been groomed for years to take over as the company [censored], and basically there was no room for him any more.

I have never been Schumi`s biggest fan, but I backed him over Raikonnen to win the 2003 title as I dislike the Finn intensely for being surly and petulant (shoving track marshals who are there to protect his safety on not one but two occasions, and deliberately overreving his Mercedes engine to detonation rather than shutting it down when it developed a problem at one race last year as a protest against his team). He is also a stupid risk taker, and has the intellectual capacity of David Beckham.

Ferrari have shown less loyalty to Schumacher than he has shown to them, as his comments about deferring to the corporate [censored] in his retiral speech proved. This was all about Ferrari proving they are the biggest thing in F1 - bigger than its most successful driver in history (as well as being bigger than the governing body, as the scandalous penalty imposed on their main title rival this weekend shows....) Trouble is, Schumacher was a success in his own right when he came to Ferrari. Ferrari were in a mess when Schumacher arrived and brought the best people with him.

I hope, for their arrogance, they descend into another 21 years of poor results, with Kimi trashing their equipment at every turn and making them realise what a mistake they made.

As for Schumacher, he clearly wants to continue driving and yesterday proved that he is still the best (Turkey proved that his team wanted to wear him down to influence him in his decision to leave...). I hope to God that one of the German manufacturers find a way to persuade him back into a BMW (how good were they yesterday!!!) or McLaren (back to the days of Ron Dennis having a brace of World Champions driving for him ).

Edited September 11, 2006 by r11co

[dadog13]

it was time....

he was a driver that had a lot of luck in his career...to be in the best teams...otherwise, if he had been in the BAR HONDA or some other team...i think we would have never heard of him!

[www_watch]

it was time....

he was a driver that had a lot of luck in his career...to be in the best teams...otherwise, if he had been in the BAR HONDA or some other team...i think we would have never heard of him!

LOL You can't be serious about that?

Ferrari wouldn't have won a single title without him.

He brought them back to the top when he came from Benetton.

[r11co]

it was time....

he was a driver that had a lot of luck in his career...to be in the best teams...otherwise, if he had been in the BAR HONDA or some other team...i think we would have never heard of him!

Rubbish. Part of a driver's skill is engineering the best deal for himself that will allow him to achieve his potential.

Ferrari were pissing away money for the best part of two decades and gettting nowhere. Michael and his close group knew what they could achieve with the resources at Ferrari, and they were pivotal in the transformation that took place.

Right now I am wondering, when there are so many mediocre drivers in F1, which other teams are thinking right now that they could be using Michael's skills. The fact that Ferrari are trying to convince Michael to keep a role in the team is selfish explotation of his loyalty - they simply want to prevent another team benefiting from his talent.

Edited September 11, 2006 by r11co

[Pugwash]

If Schumacher were as great as he thinks he is, he could win in any other half-decent car. Valentino Rossi did it when Honda wouldn't pick up his pay cheque when they assumed he'd only win on the Honda: He jumped over to the vastly inferiour Yamaha and won the MotoGP world championship on it. Twice.

Schumacher is, unfortunately, a cheat and a cad. I for one will not miss him.

[r11co]

If Schumacher were as great as he thinks he is, he could win in any other half-decent car. Valentino Rossi did it when Honda wouldn't pick up his pay cheque when they assumed he'd only win on the Honda: He jumped over to the vastly inferiour Yamaha and won the MotoGP world championship on it. Twice.

F1 isn't as simple as that - ask Jacques Villeneuve, Emerson Fittipaldi, Nigel Mansell and a whole string of ex World Champs who had terrible years in terrible cars or teams.

F1 cars take a long time to develop - look how complicated the aerodynamics are just for starters.

Bikes are a simpler issue and whether a bike is 'good' or not usually comes down to engine power, then tyre testing and tyre choice - something Rossi is exceptional at. I'm not saying it has nothing to do with his riding, but master racecraft is also about getting the best out of your vehicle. Racers love to talk these days about the 'package', and that means car/bike, tyres and support crew...

Schumacher is, unfortunately, a cheat and a cad. I for one will not miss him.

I never liked the guy ('94 and '98 being the main reasons why..), but he's a saint compared to Ferrari management. They dumped on him big style this year.

[Pugwash]

I'm not saying it has nothing to do with his riding, but master racecraft is also about getting the best out of your vehicle.

Like Jamie Whitham always said in SBK, about his mate Carl Fogarty, even if you have the best bike around, you still have to ride it. He may have been quoting Barry Sheene.

Or, Jeremy Burgess, Rossi's crew chief (and formerly Mick Doohan's) has the 80/20 theory where it's 80% rider, 20% bike. In cars it's 80% the car, 20% the driver.

You can see Rossi's talent by comparing him to Colin Edwards. Edwards is no slouch, being a World Superbike champion and Suzuka 8-hour winner (With Rossi on a shared Honda) and when he's fast, Assen or Seca, he's up there, but the rest of the year, his talent isn't enough to let him keep up with Rossi.

Now, F1 comes down to pit changes and team orders. There's no actual action on track any more.

So, to precis, I find it very difficult to find a car-racing sport that interests me these days. I hate "who has the best car" sports. Maybe A1GP should be the one.

[leitztozeiss]

it was time.... he was a driver that had a lot of luck in his career...to be in the best teams...otherwise, if he had been in the BAR HONDA or some other team...i think we would have never heard of him!

Pure rubbish. The Man can seriously drive any racing vehicle to its limit like no one else can. He also has the ability to gain an understanding of the car he is driving and convey the handling/performance characteristics to his engineers, so that meaningful tweaks and changes can be made. I think that is the not-so-well understood dimension of a good F1 (or any race car) driver. There's tons of talented drivers, but the best ones have the ability to communicate with their technical team to take the vehicles to the next level from race to race, or even pit stop to pit stop.

For ALL of the drivers, there is the element of luck . . .

[By-Tor]

Schumacher was still the best driver of the modern era of F1 (along with Mika Hakkinen).

Hakkinen and Schumacher were head and shoulders above any current F1-pilots. After Mika retired nobody was able to challenge Michael when he got even semi-competitive car in his hands. And I agree with R11co... best drivers always get best cars. It was exactly the same thing when Senna and Prost were driving... although F1 wasn't so technology-oriented back then.

Was he a cheat and a egomaniac? You bet. 1994 incident with Hill was unforgiveable. He allegedly used illegal traction control in his Benetton 1996. His stunt with Jacques 1997 was unforgiveable... and so was his stunt in Monaco qualifying this year. He always did everything humanly possible to win. True, he never drove against a worthy teammate but then again... I'm sure being his teammate wasn't the most desirable spot for any driver, either.

Diego Maradona was a cheat too... and his "Hand of God" is still the most famous goal ever scored on football. Still... people will always remember him as one of the best ever.

Like it or not, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso are the future of F1. I think they have potential to become great drivers. And I'm sure young guys like Kubica, Kovalainen and Hamilton have something to say as well. Next year will be interesting for sure.

[ubiquitous]

I for one feel that Schumacher's retirement is the end of an era... The closing of a chapter.

Some of you may like him... Some may not. But I feel he is certainly one of the best.

Still... In light of recent events, I can't say I feel too badly for the guy. He's been paid handsomely for his talent at Ferrari... The kind of paychecks I could only dream about

[Pugwash]

Diego Maradona was a cheat too... and his "Hand of God" is still the most famous goal ever scored on football. Still... people will always remember him as one of the best ever.

Not where I'm from: I'm from the country cheated upon by both Maradonna and Schumacher. Neither would be welcome in my house.

[chubbchubb]

Not where I'm from: I'm from the country cheated upon by both Maradonna and Schumacher. Neither would be welcome in my house.

In professional sports there is definitely no room for nice guys and fair play is a great concept - in theory... to compete and win on that level - you have to be prepared to take any advantage you can get - don't get me wrong - I'm not advocating this... but it is a reality - like it, or not. So, at the end of the day, there might be very few athletes who are allowed to enjoy your hospitality...

Concerning Schumacher... without being a certified Schumi Fan - this guy has won seven World Championship titles, two more than Juan Manuel Fangio, the next best in the total history of his sport, has broken almost every other record in F1, has helped to turn a chaotic Italian F1 team into a four time world champion.... if that earns him anything, it's my respect.

[Pugwash]

Concerning Schumacher... without being a certified Schumi Fan - this guy has won seven World Championship titles, two more than Juan Manuel Fangio, the next best in the total history of his sport, has broken almost every other record in F1, has helped to turn a chaotic Italian F1 team into a four time world champion.... if that earns him anything, it's my respect.

I see Schumi as the Microsoft of racing. Sure he got to the top, but he didn't do it in a very nice way, and he was proven to be a cheat, like MS. If you want to reward those who win at any cost, then feel free. I'll be over here complaining about sportsmanship.

They have a term for it here in France: "Fair Play"

Sure, it's in English, as they're still trying to get to grips with the concept.

[By-Tor]

According to a story Schumi was frustrated last year with Ferrari's poor performance and didn't promise to continue in 2007 (to Jean Todt). Thus, Ferrari had no other option but to make a pre-contract with Raikkonen...especially after Alonso's McLaren contract was secured. And experts are 100% sure that Schumacher didn't want to drive in the same team with Raikkonen... no matter what.

Raikkonen would never have settled for the second seat, and Schumacher never had a teammate with equal playing field. This is a shame, Raikkonen and Schumacher would have been interesting pairing.

[r11co]

According to a story Schumi was frustrated last year with Ferrari's poor performance and didn't promise to continue in 2007 (to Jean Todt). Thus, Ferrari had no other option but to make a pre-contract with Raikkonen...

I think Ferrari will rue the choice of Raikonnen. I repeat - I disliked Michael Schumacher to the point of downright hatred at times, but there's no taking away from the fact that he was the perfect all-rounder. He can assess a car and deliver effective feedback in a diplomatic manner.

Raikonnen, while fast, is not a car developer and prefers to break cars in protest rather than offer constructive criticism, and in Luca Badoer and Felipe Massa Ferrari might have two faithful servants but they will never have enough techincal 'nous' to fill the void left by Michael. In fact they may be too grateful for their position to feel they can voice opinion(even if it is only in private).

There is a story from years back, reported in F1 Racing magazine from a McLaren test session when it was Raikonnen, David Coulthard and Alex Wurz driving for them. Raikonnen was the blue-eyed boy of the team, and they testing a steering set-up Kimi had chosen. Kimi was consistently the fastest of the three using this set up and he was convinced it was the best the car could give.

Coulthard was the slowest, and was trying to convince the chief engineer that the car was understeering, but they wouldn't listen at first.

David stood his ground and insisted he wanted the set up changed, and the team agreed on the basis that all three drivers would try the new set up to see if it genuinely made the car faster or it just suited Coulthard better.

All three tried the car and all of them improved their lap times, but David Coulthard leapfrogged the other two to be the fastest.

What does this prove - Kimi will drive a bad car better, but will never maximise the car's potential.

Ferrari have dominated seasons and come back from behind (like this year) because they had the ability to improve their package as the season progresses. Schumacher and others can do that. Kimi can't.

Edited September 11, 2006 by r11co

[By-Tor]

I agree Kimi is not a "mature" car developer, but just like you say he has tons of natural driving talent. But to be fair, McLaren's track record in reliability has been downright horrible for the last 7-8 years.

Mika Hakkinen has MOST technical retirements from 1st grid position in Formula 1 history... so I don't think it's fair to call Kimi a "car breaker". He fought for the championship with very inferior McLaren car against Schumacher in 2003... when Macs showed a brief combination of reliability and speed.

Last year's championship went to Alonso because of the unreliablity of Macs, once again. Just like Hakkinen's 2000 title went to Schumacher because of Macs reliability problems. Kimi won 7 races and suffered from numerous technical retirements... and had his qualifying result lowered 5 times (10 positions) because of Mac engine changes.

I'm not a fan of Kimi, either. He has a personality and articular talents of a beached whale...and he makes some occasional immature moves.... but saying he doesn't have championship potential sounds quite ridiculous. I'm 100% sure he'll win the championship if Ferrari can give him a competitive car. I mean, who could threat him when Schumi is gone? Alonso maybe, but I seriously doubt Mac, Norbert Haug and Mercedes can ever get their shit together. And like I said: when it comes to reliability their track record is horrendous.

I can almost hear Haug's million times recycled comments from next year already:

"We are wery sorry dat de engine blew and da transmission and gear box broke... and schtole Fernando's win. But we're da working on dat right now..."

[Pugwash]

I mean, who could threat him when Schumi is gone?

Button!

... I'll get my coat.

[Waxon Waxoff]

I disliked Michael Schumacher to the point of downright hatred at times, but there's no taking away from the fact that he was the perfect all-rounder. He can assess a car and deliver effective feedback in a diplomatic manner.

Sorry to quote just one little bit from all your posts on this thread. I have all the respect in the world for Schu's accomplishments. He's a great driver, and he had an effect on Ferrari that no other driver could have matched. But that respect will always be tempered by my belief that Schumacher, for all his gifts and skills, felt the need to cheat. He also had the misfortune, again in my eyes, of being the dominant driver when technology and the rules lessened the importance of being able to pass cars on the track and increasd the importance of pit stop strategy.

That said, Ferrari are going to miss him a lot more than they seem to believe.

[Pugwash]

He also had the misfortune, again in my eyes, of being the dominant driver when technology and the rules lessened the importance of being able to pass cars on the track and increasd the importance of pit stop strategy.

This started before he started winning, to be fair.

[r11co]

That said, Ferrari are going to miss him a lot more than they seem to believe.

I think they know perfectly well what an asset he would still be, which is why they are keeping him on tenterhooks until the end of the year with the offer of another 'role' in the team. Just long enough for it to be too late for another team to make him an offer he couldn't refuse.

There were reports that Mario Thiessen of BMW has been trying to put a massive sponsorship package together for his team on the back of persuading Schumacher to join them.....

Edited September 12, 2006 by r11co

[castlemaine]

I think they know perfectly well what an asset he would still be, which is why they are keeping him on tenterhooks until the end of the year with the offer of another 'role' in the team. Just long enough for it to be too late for another team to make him an offer he couldn't refuse.

There were reports that Mario Thiessen of BMW has been trying to put a massive sponsorship package together for his team on the back of persuading Schumacher to join them.....

If he is still looking for a ride by the end of the year maybe he will take a break and come stateside and drive CART for a season. Obviously not quite the same but wouldn't mind seeing him at Long Beach. Who knows, Nigel did.