Michael Schumacher & traction control...
Discussion
mattikake said:
heebeegeetee said:
bodhi said:
Bloody hell, the Schumi fans are a bit sensitive aren't they?
I don;t think anyway is trying to claim MS sucks, just that he is over-rated, which I would agree with.
I'm not a schumacher fan. I just think his record is what it is, and anyone who was better was free to beat it. I don;t think anyway is trying to claim MS sucks, just that he is over-rated, which I would agree with.
F1 is becoming F3... A team finsihing 8th or 10th really aint that far off the pace of the leaders compared to the noughties and the class of drivers is very hot and very consistent, as even Schumi himself is discovering.
OTOH we haven't seen Hamilton in a properly dominant package yet...
Would Brawn and Byrne have gone to Ferrari were Schumacher not there? Well, the money being offered would have been very tempting, but most competitive people need success to make them tick, and the money would have been still good wherever they went.
Having spent a year witnessing how awful Berger and Alesi were, and how fantastic Schumacher had been in comparison, i firmly believe Byrne and Brawn went to where Schumacher had gone. I think Schumacher was the key to the whole project.
Schumacher went to two teams that had not tasted overall success before or for a very long time, and while he was there both teams quickly became very successful, and became less successful after he left.
Re Benetton there was quite a good quote made by Briatore at the time, which went something like "We had 40% of the budget of some teams, and a Ford engine, yet we went from selling T-shirts to winning world championships".
Incidentally, in the one year at Ferrari without Brawn and Byrne, Schumacher still finished well ahead in the championship than Alesi had ever managed.
And Matt, your comment on how competitive F1 is today. It is right now, but that will soon change. Make the most of it, i've only seen a season like this one before and i think that was 1982.
heebeegeetee said:
mattikake said:
heebeegeetee said:
bodhi said:
Bloody hell, the Schumi fans are a bit sensitive aren't they?
I don;t think anyway is trying to claim MS sucks, just that he is over-rated, which I would agree with.
I'm not a schumacher fan. I just think his record is what it is, and anyone who was better was free to beat it. I don;t think anyway is trying to claim MS sucks, just that he is over-rated, which I would agree with.
F1 is becoming F3... A team finsihing 8th or 10th really aint that far off the pace of the leaders compared to the noughties and the class of drivers is very hot and very consistent, as even Schumi himself is discovering.
OTOH we haven't seen Hamilton in a properly dominant package yet...
Would Brawn and Byrne have gone to Ferrari were Schumacher not there? Well, the money being offered would have been very tempting, but most competitive people need success to make them tick, and the money would have been still good wherever they went.
Having spent a year witnessing how awful Berger and Alesi were, and how fantastic Schumacher had been in comparison, i firmly believe Byrne and Brawn went to where Schumacher had gone. I think Schumacher was the key to the whole project.
Schumacher went to two teams that had not tasted overall success before or for a very long time, and while he was there both teams quickly became very successful, and became less successful after he left.
entropy said:
heebeegeetee said:
mattikake said:
heebeegeetee said:
bodhi said:
Bloody hell, the Schumi fans are a bit sensitive aren't they?
I don;t think anyway is trying to claim MS sucks, just that he is over-rated, which I would agree with.
I'm not a schumacher fan. I just think his record is what it is, and anyone who was better was free to beat it. I don;t think anyway is trying to claim MS sucks, just that he is over-rated, which I would agree with.
F1 is becoming F3... A team finsihing 8th or 10th really aint that far off the pace of the leaders compared to the noughties and the class of drivers is very hot and very consistent, as even Schumi himself is discovering.
OTOH we haven't seen Hamilton in a properly dominant package yet...
Would Brawn and Byrne have gone to Ferrari were Schumacher not there? Well, the money being offered would have been very tempting, but most competitive people need success to make them tick, and the money would have been still good wherever they went.
Having spent a year witnessing how awful Berger and Alesi were, and how fantastic Schumacher had been in comparison, i firmly believe Byrne and Brawn went to where Schumacher had gone. I think Schumacher was the key to the whole project.
Schumacher went to two teams that had not tasted overall success before or for a very long time, and while he was there both teams quickly became very successful, and became less successful after he left.
him, and we all know what he could be like when he thought he was hard done by, in fact he'd been trying to move to Williams for a while by then. He got his money from Ron for the very same reason you are arguing for Schumacher, he was the best driver available - he won 5 races in 93 don't forget (ok Monaco may have been a tad lucky with MS' engine problem but he hung on in there and got his reward) and when he left McLaren they didn't win another race for years, same as Michael - also Lotus I don't think won another race after Senna left in 87... Great drivers are worth the money and the hassle, they win in cars that shouldn't.
markcoznottz said:
2 things bother me, schu's lack of qualifying pace, and his absolute refusal to have an equal team-mate.
Senna refused to have a team mate who was, in his opinion, very good - Derek Warwick. He said that was because he didn't think his team could put out two decent cars.I don't think anyone on here has suggested that the Ferrari team of the Brawn/Todt/Byrne/Schumacher days was not the best we've seen in F1. The only caveat I'd add was to say that there have been others in other years which have been that much better than the teams around them at the time.
But the argument about how good Schumacher was relative to other drivers is pretty pointless although a great deal of fun.
Whilst there is little doubt that other teams would have won more points/WCCs with Schumacher as driver, there is even less doubt that with Todt/Brawn/Byrne/FIAT funding behind them there are many drivers who could also have won a lot more WDCs.
One could argue about the wort of each individual and the money brought to the Ferrari team but I'm not sure of what evidence one could produce. I was certain the Brawn brought a considerable degree of professionalism to the team but you could argue that his showing at Mercedes this year proves that wrong. And of course you could bring up exactly the same argument for that other bloke.
Many have, in the past, suggested money as the prime factor but that ignores the fact that it has been the norm for Ferrari to ooze money. Rory? Certainly the 1993/4 and 5 Benettons were the class of the field. He's actually got my vote as the major contributor if I had to choose one.
Todt? Certainly his friends helped him no end. But there was more to him than that according to everyone in the pitlane.
So was it one, two, more or all?
dom180 said:
at Ferrari the same people were there including the electronic/traction control guru just with better political connections than had been the case at Renault.
Not straight away though, IIRC. There was a year in between Schumacher leaving and the others following, in which time MS had won 3 races and finished 3rd in the championships. heebeegeetee said:
dom180 said:
at Ferrari the same people were there including the electronic/traction control guru just with better political connections than had been the case at Renault.
Not straight away though, IIRC. There was a year in between Schumacher leaving and the others following, in which time MS had won 3 races and finished 3rd in the championships. Joking aside, Renaults amazing ability to get off the line in 2004-2007 owe an awful lot to a work exchange with their sister company, Nissan.
dom180 said:
heebeegeetee said:
dom180 said:
at Ferrari the same people were there including the electronic/traction control guru just with better political connections than had been the case at Renault.
Not straight away though, IIRC. There was a year in between Schumacher leaving and the others following, in which time MS had won 3 races and finished 3rd in the championships. Alesi won 1 and had multiple second places in 1995. And if the car had been reliable as opposed to always braking down, who knows.....
Edited by dom180 on Thursday 16th September 18:32
Of course in Schumacher's case it was only the beginning.
Berger and Alesi went to Benetton. A year later Benetton's best engineers left.
Derek Smith said:
ralphrj said:
Derek Smith said:
as if Hill (who lapped Prost in identical machiery at a soaking Donington) couldn't hope to be anywhere near as good.
Small point of note, Hill did not lap Prost at Donington. Hill finished 35 seconds ahead of Prost. Prost was more than 40 seconds ahead of Hill when he stalled the car during a pitstop and lost approximately a minute.What I was confusing it with was that Hill was on the same lap as Senna at the end, something that Prost could not manage. he was around 3/4 of a lap in front of his team leader.
That was Hill's first season in F1 - from memory - so Donington would have been his fourth race. And I am reliably informed by my mate, who used to complete lap charts and irregular timings when spectating, that at times he was pulling away from Prost at 3 seconds a lap when they were on identical tyres.
An impressive race by Hill whichever way you cut it.
Whilst some say that it was the best first lap by an F1 driver ever I have to say that at the next race, Canada, Senna was, to my mind, even more impressive. The man could handle a car like no other driver in recent years.
I'm not dissing Hill as a driver - in fact I am a huge Damon Hill fan - but it was an OK performance rather than a brilliant one.
Derek Smith said:
markcoznottz said:
2 things bother me, schu's lack of qualifying pace, and his absolute refusal to have an equal team-mate.
Senna refused to have a team mate who was, in his opinion, very good - Derek Warwick. He said that was because he didn't think his team could put out two decent cars.I don't think anyone on here has suggested that the Ferrari team of the Brawn/Todt/Byrne/Schumacher days was not the best we've seen in F1. The only caveat I'd add was to say that there have been others in other years which have been that much better than the teams around them at the time.
But the argument about how good Schumacher was relative to other drivers is pretty pointless although a great deal of fun.
Whilst there is little doubt that other teams would have won more points/WCCs with Schumacher as driver, there is even less doubt that with Todt/Brawn/Byrne/FIAT funding behind them there are many drivers who could also have won a lot more WDCs.
One could argue about the wort of each individual and the money brought to the Ferrari team but I'm not sure of what evidence one could produce. I was certain the Brawn brought a considerable degree of professionalism to the team but you could argue that his showing at Mercedes this year proves that wrong. And of course you could bring up exactly the same argument for that other bloke.
Many have, in the past, suggested money as the prime factor but that ignores the fact that it has been the norm for Ferrari to ooze money. Rory? Certainly the 1993/4 and 5 Benettons were the class of the field. He's actually got my vote as the major contributor if I had to choose one.
Todt? Certainly his friends helped him no end. But there was more to him than that according to everyone in the pitlane.
So was it one, two, more or all?
ralphrj said:
Derek Smith said:
ralphrj said:
Derek Smith said:
as if Hill (who lapped Prost in identical machiery at a soaking Donington) couldn't hope to be anywhere near as good.
Small point of note, Hill did not lap Prost at Donington. Hill finished 35 seconds ahead of Prost. Prost was more than 40 seconds ahead of Hill when he stalled the car during a pitstop and lost approximately a minute.What I was confusing it with was that Hill was on the same lap as Senna at the end, something that Prost could not manage. he was around 3/4 of a lap in front of his team leader.
That was Hill's first season in F1 - from memory - so Donington would have been his fourth race. And I am reliably informed by my mate, who used to complete lap charts and irregular timings when spectating, that at times he was pulling away from Prost at 3 seconds a lap when they were on identical tyres.
An impressive race by Hill whichever way you cut it.
Whilst some say that it was the best first lap by an F1 driver ever I have to say that at the next race, Canada, Senna was, to my mind, even more impressive. The man could handle a car like no other driver in recent years.
I'm not dissing Hill as a driver - in fact I am a huge Damon Hill fan - but it was an OK performance rather than a brilliant one.
markcoznottz said:
Senna went to mclaren as new boy, didnt duck partnering prost. Sennas qualifying was absolutely UNBELIEVABLE, dont see that record ever being broken, in relation to starts. Schumachers quali wasnt always brilliant, as said thats a bit puzzling.
There's no points for qualifying though, which personally, i always thought Prost was certainly aware of. I never really thought that MS was a poor qualifier though, more that he was never in the properly fastest car until his heydays at Ferrari.
Derek Smith said:
markcoznottz said:
2 things bother me, schu's lack of qualifying pace, and his absolute refusal to have an equal team-mate.
Senna refused to have a team mate who was, in his opinion, very good - Derek Warwick. He said that was because he didn't think his team could put out two decent cars.entropy said:
Derek Smith said:
markcoznottz said:
2 things bother me, schu's lack of qualifying pace, and his absolute refusal to have an equal team-mate.
Senna refused to have a team mate who was, in his opinion, very good - Derek Warwick. He said that was because he didn't think his team could put out two decent cars.
superkartracer said:
mattikake said:
As I see it, Schumi's all-conquering driving style was based around TC.
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