Will the real Schumacher stand up?

Aug 8, 2012

I hope folks (including you) can keep it civil!!

There’s an age old question in Formula One: is it the car or the driver? When it comes to the greatest drivers in the sport’s history, the top spot is usually bandied about with names such as Fangio, Clark , Prost and Senna. But where exactly does the winningest driver of them all lie when it comes to the car vs. driver debate?

When Michael Schumacher retired at the end of the 2006 season, he had amassed a phenomenal 7 World Championships, 91 wins, 67 poles and 154 podiums from 249 starts. Between 1992, his first full season, and ’06, his worst series placing was 5^th in 1999, a year in which he sat out six races following a broken leg suffered in the British GP. That was also the only season of his first fifteen in which he was beaten by his teammate. Eddie Irvine in the sister Ferrari went on to finish 2^nd at year’s end. Michael had been sitting in 2^nd at the time of his crash.

The German made a much anticipated return to F1 in 2010 with the new Mercedes team, which had won the previous season’s Driver and Team Championships as Brawn GP. Since Michael’s return, however, things have famously not gone as planned. Two and a half seasons and 49 GPs in, Schumacher has one pole and one lone podium, a 3^rd place finish earlier this year.

Nico Rosberg, who has driven alongside Schumacher for all three seasons at Mercedes, has finished ahead of Michael 67% of the time, 33-16, and has been on the podium five times, one of which was his maiden win in China, the 3^rd round of this season. Nico currently lies 6^th in the standings to Michael’s 12^thand he finished ahead of Schumacher in their first two seasons together, 7^th to 9^th in2010 and 7^th to 8^th last year.

So this brings me to the questions. Obviously it takes a talent to drive a modern Formula One car which the normal human being cannot even fathom, much less drive one towards the sharp end of the grid. But has Michael simply lost a step since his sabbatical or could it be the car? And if it’s the car, then did the car take more of a part in Schumacher’s winningest this and that history than the driver did? It is said that some drivers can take a car with limited potential, wring it’s neck and get a victory out of it. Is Michael Schumacher one of those drivers? Worse yet, is it possibly even sacrilege to even question the true ability of the great Michael Schumacher?