The end of an era
We woke up on the morning of 10 November 1989 to find that the world had changed irrevocably. The Berlin Wall had come down and Communism's death knell had been sounded. When the Formula One watching world awakes on Monday it will do so in the certain knowledge that things will never be the same again. Michael Schumacher, the most efficient driving machine the world has ever known, will have departed the scene forever.
If you bought a Jaguar motor car in the 1970s you were buying a vehicle with a history suffused with grace, charm and elegance. The feline lines of a Jag exuded beauty and romance. A Jag owner would get home and stand in his garage staring at his car for a good ten minutes before venturing into his home to greet his wife. The trouble was that within a couple of years, the car would be coated in rust underneath, its wheel arches would be falling away because of rust and the same owner's garage floor would be routinely covered in leaked engine oil. The Jag was English-built, you see. Contrast this with a Mercedes-Benz from the same era. Every panel fitted perfectly. The doors shut with a distinctive thunk. The engine kept going for mile after mile after mile and refused to die. Not a hint of oil was ever to be found on a floor where a Merc had been standing. The car represented the cutting edge of Teutonic motoring efficiency. But it was boring.
Michael Schumacher applied German engineering efficiency to the field of motor racing. Whereas famous rakes like James Hunt would begin each race by smoking a quick fag (having spent the night boozing and shagging a bevy of babes in his hotel room), Schumacher is famously ascetic, disciplined and virtually teetotal. He introduced levels of personal fitness never before seen in Formula One. In the days when Nigel Mansell was racing, sometimes he would end a race so exhausted that he would have to be dragged out of his car and carried to the paddock. Schumacher instead leaps out of his after a gruelling race in death-provoking temperatures as fresh as if he has just emerged from his morning shower. The contrast was never more clear than at the end of a particularly challenging race in 2002. David Coulthard standing next to a leaping, grinning Schumacher on the podium was so knackered that he looked as though he would pass out. Coulthard , no fitness slouch himself, later complained that the national anthems took too long. "They should give us a chair to sit on," he said. This dedication to physical fitness and personal discipline raised the stakes for everyone. Nowadays a rakish lifestyle like Hunt's is unimaginable. Most drivers are committed family men away from the circuit. It has to be said, though, that drivers have become one-dimensional characters. In a word, boring.
It is not just his dedication to personal fitness that is Schumacher's distinctive contribution to Formula One. Schumacher makes it his business to understand the minutiae of his Ferrari's engineering. He will sit late into the night with the Ferrari engineers in Maranello discussing the finer points of the car's engine or gearbox. When he performs a test lap, he knows exactly what to tell his team about the car's performance; what needs tweaking, adding to or taking away from. This too has been copied across the paddock - but not quite to the same extent. Team engineers now expect to have knowledgeable conversations with their drivers. It is not enough for a driver to say to his team "give me the right car and I will perform". The driver has to be intimately involved in the process.
Schumacher's unique insight that raw talent (of which he is blessed with tons) was not sufficient is the quality that has made him the most prolific points scorer of all time. You do not win seven world championships and ninety one Grands Prix by simply throwing a car round a circuit and hoping for a good result. In a demonstration of his combination of raw ability and technical prowess, Schumacher raced his Ferrari F2003 against a Eurofighter Typhoon jet in 2003. The F1 car won at 600 meters but lost at 900. However, the plane only beat Schumacher by 0.2 seconds in the 900m dash with a time of 13 seconds compared with the Ferrari's 13.2 seconds. Intriguingly, the Ferrari got from 0 to 60 in just 2.3 seconds. At the point at which the plane beat the Ferrari, it had taken off and was literally flying. So did it really win? When asked for his views later Schumacher's response was typically Germanic: "the track was slightly damp and the car's set-up was not ideal for these conditions…" What? Most mortals would have been shrieking with delight and saying "did you see that?!" Not Schumacher.
No commentary about Michael Schumacher would be complete without some mention of the man's extraordinary luck. The instances of luck playing in his favour are too numerous to recount. If ever there was to be a Ferrari retirement for mechanical reasons it would not involve Schumacher's car. If there was a driver to emerge unscathed from a major crash it would be Schumacher. If the rules were unclear about anything involving Schumacher, the decision would invariably fall his way. Even his entry into Formula One was characterised by masses of good luck. In 1991, mid-way through the season, Frenchman Bertrand Gachot driving for Jordan had a road rage incident in London. He collided with a taxi driver and then fell into a heated argument which ended with him spraying CS gas in the taxi driver's face. For this Gachot got bundled off to chokey for a few years, thus freeing up a place at Jordan for the young German driver.
How do I sum up the Schumacher era then? Well, it has been one of outstanding, even mind-boggling, achievement. An era that will remain seared on the memory - and in the record books - forever and a day. There are many who say that Formula One will be worse off because of his departure. Niki Lauda went as far as saying this week that Kimi Raikkonen will cause the decline of Ferrari. That may be harsh but time will tell. Personally, I look forward to an era of greater unpredictability; a return to the romance of motor racing. I may have expressed fawning respect for his talent, conscientiousness and focus but I am not a fan. Even discounting the unsportsmanlike behaviour he has displayed over the years, hand on heart I can safely say that I will not miss Michael Schumacher.
Gitau
20 October 2006
If you bought a Jaguar motor car in the 1970s you were buying a vehicle with a history suffused with grace, charm and elegance. The feline lines of a Jag exuded beauty and romance. A Jag owner would get home and stand in his garage staring at his car for a good ten minutes before venturing into his home to greet his wife. The trouble was that within a couple of years, the car would be coated in rust underneath, its wheel arches would be falling away because of rust and the same owner's garage floor would be routinely covered in leaked engine oil. The Jag was English-built, you see. Contrast this with a Mercedes-Benz from the same era. Every panel fitted perfectly. The doors shut with a distinctive thunk. The engine kept going for mile after mile after mile and refused to die. Not a hint of oil was ever to be found on a floor where a Merc had been standing. The car represented the cutting edge of Teutonic motoring efficiency. But it was boring.
Michael Schumacher applied German engineering efficiency to the field of motor racing. Whereas famous rakes like James Hunt would begin each race by smoking a quick fag (having spent the night boozing and shagging a bevy of babes in his hotel room), Schumacher is famously ascetic, disciplined and virtually teetotal. He introduced levels of personal fitness never before seen in Formula One. In the days when Nigel Mansell was racing, sometimes he would end a race so exhausted that he would have to be dragged out of his car and carried to the paddock. Schumacher instead leaps out of his after a gruelling race in death-provoking temperatures as fresh as if he has just emerged from his morning shower. The contrast was never more clear than at the end of a particularly challenging race in 2002. David Coulthard standing next to a leaping, grinning Schumacher on the podium was so knackered that he looked as though he would pass out. Coulthard , no fitness slouch himself, later complained that the national anthems took too long. "They should give us a chair to sit on," he said. This dedication to physical fitness and personal discipline raised the stakes for everyone. Nowadays a rakish lifestyle like Hunt's is unimaginable. Most drivers are committed family men away from the circuit. It has to be said, though, that drivers have become one-dimensional characters. In a word, boring.
It is not just his dedication to personal fitness that is Schumacher's distinctive contribution to Formula One. Schumacher makes it his business to understand the minutiae of his Ferrari's engineering. He will sit late into the night with the Ferrari engineers in Maranello discussing the finer points of the car's engine or gearbox. When he performs a test lap, he knows exactly what to tell his team about the car's performance; what needs tweaking, adding to or taking away from. This too has been copied across the paddock - but not quite to the same extent. Team engineers now expect to have knowledgeable conversations with their drivers. It is not enough for a driver to say to his team "give me the right car and I will perform". The driver has to be intimately involved in the process.
Schumacher's unique insight that raw talent (of which he is blessed with tons) was not sufficient is the quality that has made him the most prolific points scorer of all time. You do not win seven world championships and ninety one Grands Prix by simply throwing a car round a circuit and hoping for a good result. In a demonstration of his combination of raw ability and technical prowess, Schumacher raced his Ferrari F2003 against a Eurofighter Typhoon jet in 2003. The F1 car won at 600 meters but lost at 900. However, the plane only beat Schumacher by 0.2 seconds in the 900m dash with a time of 13 seconds compared with the Ferrari's 13.2 seconds. Intriguingly, the Ferrari got from 0 to 60 in just 2.3 seconds. At the point at which the plane beat the Ferrari, it had taken off and was literally flying. So did it really win? When asked for his views later Schumacher's response was typically Germanic: "the track was slightly damp and the car's set-up was not ideal for these conditions…" What? Most mortals would have been shrieking with delight and saying "did you see that?!" Not Schumacher.
No commentary about Michael Schumacher would be complete without some mention of the man's extraordinary luck. The instances of luck playing in his favour are too numerous to recount. If ever there was to be a Ferrari retirement for mechanical reasons it would not involve Schumacher's car. If there was a driver to emerge unscathed from a major crash it would be Schumacher. If the rules were unclear about anything involving Schumacher, the decision would invariably fall his way. Even his entry into Formula One was characterised by masses of good luck. In 1991, mid-way through the season, Frenchman Bertrand Gachot driving for Jordan had a road rage incident in London. He collided with a taxi driver and then fell into a heated argument which ended with him spraying CS gas in the taxi driver's face. For this Gachot got bundled off to chokey for a few years, thus freeing up a place at Jordan for the young German driver.
How do I sum up the Schumacher era then? Well, it has been one of outstanding, even mind-boggling, achievement. An era that will remain seared on the memory - and in the record books - forever and a day. There are many who say that Formula One will be worse off because of his departure. Niki Lauda went as far as saying this week that Kimi Raikkonen will cause the decline of Ferrari. That may be harsh but time will tell. Personally, I look forward to an era of greater unpredictability; a return to the romance of motor racing. I may have expressed fawning respect for his talent, conscientiousness and focus but I am not a fan. Even discounting the unsportsmanlike behaviour he has displayed over the years, hand on heart I can safely say that I will not miss Michael Schumacher.
Gitau
20 October 2006
posted by Gitau at 2:02 pm
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