Michael Schumacher & traction control...

[Derek Smith]

markcoznottz 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.

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?

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. The one thing we never saw, such a regret,was a driver like hakkinen at his peak as schumachers team mate. That would have told us everything. I suppose it depends how good you think moreno, piquet,patrese, brundle, lehto, verstappen, Herbert, Irvine, Barrichello, Massa are, they cant all have been rubbish can they?.

I’m not quite sure the point you are making. Senna had to go to McLaren if he wanted to win the WDC. The car was the class of the field. The situation at McL was different to that at Lotus.

Out of your list I would suggest many of them were very good second raters, with the exception of Irvine of course. Piquet was the one quality driver but he was beaten by Mansell. Not only that, Mansell beat him on occasion with a less powerful car.

Herbert tells how it was partnering MS – the man he describes as ‘nothing extra special’. JH outqualified MS and quite comfortably once. For the rest of that race and from then on, despite supposedly getting equal treatment, MS had full access to JH’s stats and JH was not allowed access to MS’s.

It is apparent from that that MS feared JH. I saw JH drive before he got into F1 and there is little doubt that he was a driver of some quality but you never know in lower formulae. You need to see them in F1. His accident put him back and he took time to get going again. But even so, he still outqualified MS. But the team made sure he never did so again.

So that’s my point when I say we can never say how great MS was as it was never a level playing field in the teams he was in.

We are told that for some of his championship years that his car was not the class of the field. The evidence of this is, apparently, that other drivers got closer to him. That’s not really evidence.

I don’t know how good MS was relative to other drivers. All I do know is that Ferrari under Todt was the best team I’ve ever seen in F1 since the start of the 3-litre engine. There was no weak spot. And they all worked together.

Take one of the participants out and would they have done nothing? Perhaps, and perhaps not. But which was the most important? Which had the greatest influence? I have my guess but that is all it is, a guess. And that makes it the same as everyone else’s opinion. No one can know.

MS has done nothing in a lesser team, and nothing against his team mate. Brawn is currently doing only slightly better than MS. Todt? Well, he seems to be doing an adequate job with the FIA.

It was a privilege to see it, but it went on too long, much too long. It ruined the sport for those of us who wanted to see racing.

[mattikake]

superkartracer said:

You know more than hill and Herbert then.

Maybe but I'm not alone in this, on PH or other sites. Seeing it and doing it are two different things.

The graphs clearly show how much of maintaining the limit schumi does (did) on steering input, letting the TC do most of the throttle work. Trulli had a similar technique. Watch some onboard quali laps of Trulli during 2007 (TC days) when he was a 'quali expert'. Sometimes he saws ridiculously violently at the wheel, seemingly unneccesarily so, yet not correcting any obivous slide. Limit maintenance. And it doesn't happen that way any more.

All drivers have their own style, but some suit TC cars much better. As I have maintained, and has been empirically maintained, Schumi was only so comparatively fast 1994 - 2006, in a TC car (well rumoured to be a TC car, or not).

btw, in the graph of that vid JYS would have a field day with JH. He clearly applied too much throttle too soon and had to life before the exit of Bridge. JYS's mantra is to only start using the throttle when you know you don't have to lift again. JH's cornering would be erroneous in JYS's books. It's probably very selective lap data though...

[heebeegeetee]

Derek Smith said:

1. MS has done nothing in a lesser team, and nothing against his team mate. Brawn is currently doing only slightly better than MS. Todt? Well, he seems to be doing an adequate job with the FIA.

2. It was a privilege to see it, but it went on too long, much too long. It ruined the sport for those of us who wanted to see racing.

1. Eh? He won championships with a lesser team clled Benetton, as you well know. And Brawn won wdc and wcc championships with the first team in his name, which turned out to be a chassis he designed for Honda which had to have a Merc engine hastily grafted on to it in considerably les time than is ideal.

2. It's a shame the other teams didn't match the hard work and efort. Blame them for anything lacking in their departments, not the team that worked the hardest.

[markcoznottz]

mattikake said:

superkartracer said:

You know more than hill and Herbert then.

Maybe but I'm not alone in this, on PH or other sites. Seeing it and doing it are two different things.

The graphs clearly show how much of maintaining the limit schumi does (did) on steering input, letting the TC do most of the throttle work. Trulli had a similar technique. Watch some onboard quali laps of Trulli during 2007 (TC days) when he was a 'quali expert'. Sometimes he saws ridiculously violently at the wheel, seemingly unneccesarily so, yet not correcting any obivous slide. Limit maintenance. And it doesn't happen that way any more.

All drivers have their own style, but some suit TC cars much better. As I have maintained, and has been empirically maintained, Schumi was only so comparatively fast 1994 - 2006, in a TC car (well rumoured to be a TC car, or not).

btw, in the graph of that vid JYS would have a field day with JH. He clearly applied too much throttle too soon and had to life before the exit of Bridge. JYS's mantra is to only start using the throttle when you know you don't have to lift again. JH's cornering would be erroneous in JYS's books. It's probably very selective lap data though...

Trulli was a one lap specialist no question, awesome karter as well. That data released by benetton on the old you flube vid could mean everything or nothing really. We dont know comparative fuel levels, tyres etc, its just numbers.

[cod man]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula...

Interesting article by Mark Hughes on why he thinks Schumacher has lost it.

[RobM77]

cod man said:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula...

Interesting article by Mark Hughes on why he thinks Schumacher has lost it.

Thanks for posting that link. An excellent article, and very well written.

[CampDavid]

RobM77 said:

cod man said:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula...

Interesting article by Mark Hughes on why he thinks Schumacher has lost it.

Thanks for posting that link. An excellent article, and very well written.

Certainly is. It'll be a shame if he walks after this season. I hope for an improvement

[RobM77]

CampDavid said:

RobM77 said:

cod man said:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula...

Interesting article by Mark Hughes on why he thinks Schumacher has lost it.

Thanks for posting that link. An excellent article, and very well written.

Certainly is. It'll be a shame if he walks after this season. I hope for an improvement

I like unexpected heroes, and I especially like watching someone of 40+ compete and win at sport against 20 somethings

[Emeye]

heebeegeetee said:

FourWheelDrift said:

And according to F1 journo Joe Saward after Senna was taken out by Hakkinen early on in the race he stayed track-side to listen to the cars, on returning to the Williams pits his opinion was the Benetton's were illegal.

I've never bought that one. It's not possible for one man to stand in the middle of a circuit while there's either a race or a practice session going on, and be the only man within the entire circuit who can hear traction control.

That just isn't possible.

I don't understand how teams could have got away running traction control if it was banned. I remember being at Circuit de Catalunya the year they switched back to traction control (can't remember the year 2000 and summat) when some of the teams had switched it on and others hadn't - stood by the side of the track it was blatantly obvious who was running traction control by the stuttering sound - almost like a machine gun going off!

[RobM77]

Emeye said:

heebeegeetee said:

FourWheelDrift said:

And according to F1 journo Joe Saward after Senna was taken out by Hakkinen early on in the race he stayed track-side to listen to the cars, on returning to the Williams pits his opinion was the Benetton's were illegal.

I've never bought that one. It's not possible for one man to stand in the middle of a circuit while there's either a race or a practice session going on, and be the only man within the entire circuit who can hear traction control.

That just isn't possible.

I don't understand how teams could have got away running traction control if it was banned. I remember being at Circuit de Catalunya the year they switched back to traction control (can't remember the year 2000 and summat) when some of the teams had switched it on and others hadn't - stood by the side of the track it was blatantly obvious who was running traction control by the stuttering sound - almost like a machine gun going off!

Nobody said Senna was the only person that could hear it though.. I'm sure his team could hear it too. That said, you can only hear it on the exit of corners, and most of the team are based halfway down the pit straight...

[heebeegeetee]

RobM77 said:

Emeye said:

heebeegeetee said:

FourWheelDrift said:

And according to F1 journo Joe Saward after Senna was taken out by Hakkinen early on in the race he stayed track-side to listen to the cars, on returning to the Williams pits his opinion was the Benetton's were illegal.

I've never bought that one. It's not possible for one man to stand in the middle of a circuit while there's either a race or a practice session going on, and be the only man within the entire circuit who can hear traction control.

That just isn't possible.

I don't understand how teams could have got away running traction control if it was banned. I remember being at Circuit de Catalunya the year they switched back to traction control (can't remember the year 2000 and summat) when some of the teams had switched it on and others hadn't - stood by the side of the track it was blatantly obvious who was running traction control by the stuttering sound - almost like a machine gun going off!

Nobody said Senna was the only person that could hear it though.. I'm sure his team could hear it too. That said, you can only hear it on the exit of corners, and most of the team are based halfway down the pit straight...

if you watch any video of the wonderful Euro GP at Donny in '93, you can hear TC at work. You can hear TC at work while watching it on telly. If TC was there to be heard, it was there for everyone to hear, inc the worldwide TV audience.