On a day in which retirement once again hampered Lewis Hamilton’s chance of becoming Formula One world champion for the second time in his career, Michael Schumacher once more suffered the ignominy of crashing out in an incident in which the blame can only be attributed to the seven time world champion.
Of course the main talking point of the day was not how Schumacher’s race ended, but how reliability issues ended Lewis Hamilton’s race, and enabled Sebastian Vettel to surge on to victory and move into second in the overall standings behind the consistently impressive Alonso. Alonso once again managed to drag his Ferrari onto the podium, and in a car which is far from the best in the field, he tops the standings.
Now back onto the issue of Schumacher. People weren’t expecting him to be challenging for the world title in this car, but undoubtedly people were hoping for more from the German. Since his return nearly three years ago, the former great has constantly struggled, and to some extent his great reputation has been damaged by the failures of his Mercedes career.
Michael has always been an aggressive and competitive racer, so it is no surprise that he is involved in incidents, but the frequency and type of incidents that are hindering his season must be a worry to his bosses at Mercedes. Yesterday’s crash was quite simply Michael’s fault, and there is no way the blame can be absolved after he piled into the back of the Torro Rosso of Jean Eric Vergne, straight after the first safety car.
The Mercedes was evidently the quicker of the two cars, but Michael’s attempted overtake was simply clumsy, and only resulted in ending both drivers’ races, and a realistic chance of a haul of points. At first the German pointed to a mechanical issue, but later rescinded that comment, and acknowledged it was a driver error, as he lost control of the car under braking.
As a result of the crash and in light of a previous incident with Williams’ Bruno Senna at the Spanish Grand Prix, Schumacher has been handed a ten place grid penalty for the next race in Japan. A stewards’ statement read: “The driver (Schumacher) acknowledged that the collision was his error, due to failure to anticipate braking performance of the car with lower tyre grip (Vergne) following a safety car period.”
All in all it has been another difficult season for Schumacher, who sits only 12th in the Drivers’ Standings, with less than half the points of his teammate Nico Rosberg. His comeback has been constantly blighted by problems, and he has struggled to match the pace of his teammate on occasion over the past three seasons. It took Schumacher a long time to rediscover a semblance of the pace he possessed in his first stint in F1, and he has been outperformed by his German compatriot Rosberg. This year the two drivers have been much closer in performance, but Schumacher has suffered with a combination of terrible luck and costly errors, which see his future in jeopardy.
In contrast to fellow returnee Kimi Raikkonen, Schumacher has endured a much bumpier ride. Lotus’ Raikkonen sits 3rd in the standings, and has been a constant feature in the points, finishing every race of the season, a true model of consistency. The Lotus does seem to be a quicker car than the Mercedes, and Raikkonen’s situation is different to that of Schumacher’s since he is younger and only had a short spell away from F1, but the difference in fortunes is glaring. Raikkonen is outperforming his teammate Grosjean, who at times has shown phenomenal potential, whilst Schumacher quite simply has struggled to beat his teammate.
Schumacher’s future at Mercedes now looks under threat, with the prospect of either Lewis Hamilton or one of a clutch of promising young drivers taking the seat from the veteran. Schumacher has had a fantastic career, but the previous three years have only served to tarnish his glittering reputation, especially with the younger generation who remember less of his former success. In his day Schumacher was unbeatable and the best, but now sadly he appears distinctly average and no longer stands out as a star from the rest of the grid. The Schumacher of today seems to be only a shadow of the great driver he was in the past.