Schu(Michael)... tries something new

[Jims5543]

Your both right.

I will have to shut my mouth (or stop typing) until next season when FA makes his dreadful move to McLaren and duly takes himself out of contention.

I can only hope MS sticks around for 2008. It is pretty clear though that the FIA is done with him and wants some new blood. Maybe FA?

Nostatic - Monaco is a drivers course, finesse rules the day. FA has no finesse he has brute force and a car that can hold up to his abuse. MS, with a clear track aread would have run off. I am sure of it. His display of picking up 17 places on a track that your not supposed to be able to pass on is a direct indication of his driving ability. Like it or not, Ferrari had a hot car on Sunday .

Too bad MS didn't hit the wall. He should have took his foot off the brakes and not saved it.

How does FIA rules work with damage during Qualifying? Does one have to start with said damage? Or can they repair prior to the race?

[Dennis Kalma]

Oh no Jim, now I will have to agree with you.....very upsetting.

I think FA will not do at all well at McLaren, I think he and the Renault seem to be suited to each other, and I suspect he will be like Barichello and his move to BAR.....he will struggle and MAYBE master it.

I think that MS does earn our admiration for moving up as high as he did yesterday, that is what makes his antics so galling....he is good enough that he doesn't have to do them to be at the top.

In terms of FIA rules, I think they get to repair anything broken, but I suspect there is a penalty of some sort....if true to form, they will remove the fastest 3 times or similar. I think this is where the FIA truly sucks enough to put a smile on the face of every man on the planet....just quit it with the silly penalties for changing engines and stuff....let them go.

I think that the MS/FA battle would have been fun , but I think Alonso would have pulled it off if he would have been on the pole. He is a good starter and once in front, I think he would have been able to hold MS off on that miserable excuse of a track at Monaco...we will never know for sure...

Dennis

[911 in SC]

Jim, I totally disagree about FA not being as smooth as MS. I see it as FA using all of the tools he has that is allowed by FA. Can you really say that he won't run a totally different line, or drive totally different without TC? He's using what he has, plain and simple. We'll have to wait until '08 and see if he will drive differently. Too bad he won't be at Renault so we could have a good comparison.

I don't think FA is F1s new golden child. If he is, I think it will be short-lived. Sorry to say, as I am a FA fan, but I don't think he's just going to go over to MM and pick up where he leaves off at Renault.

I just don't understand where people think FA is arrogant, and then think MS is not. I just can't understand that reasoning at all.

Jim, we can certainly agree that it was very good to see DC on the podium again though. I have always liked him, on track and off. He seems to be a very good guy. Too bad he has had alot of bad breaks over the past several years.

[450knotOffice]

You go Jim!

[plain fan]

It was a hollow victory:
1. The race was at Monaco, where passing is 99% nonexistent.
2. FA was pushed for a while but was never in real danger of being passed.
2. The fastest race lap was set by M Schumacher.
3. We could also argue the Barricello held half the field up earlier in the race and that Buton held Schumacher up for a few laps as well
4. It doesn't matter anymore because the race has been run, won and entered into the book unless something else turns up

[Tervuren]

Actualy, Micheal I know has been pretty hard on the tires during the tire change rules. The comments that he's not just letting the TC run things are valid, he uses a very unique entry, and very very lightly drifts the car out of a ot of corners.

[kach22i]

Michael Schumacher has been stripped of his pole position after FIA officials judged the seven time world champion to have deliberately stopped his Ferrari on track in a bid to prevent rivals bettering his best time.

Pretty damming.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by plain fan

1. The race was at Monaco, where passing is 99% nonexistent.

Reminds me of old rechargable "Hot Wheels" on the "fat track", just cars going around and around.

[Randy W]

Interesting that virtually everyone actually invoved in F1 who were at Monaco agree that Schumacher's move was at least partly deliberate. I agree with Jackie Setwart's analysis of what happened below. There is simply too much history to ignore from Adelaide in 1994, when he won his first title by driving his crippled Benetton into the path of Damon Hill's Williams and three years later at Jerez, when he turned his Ferrari into the side of Jacques Villeneuve's Williams, again while trying to prevent his opponent from depriving him of the championship. Like what happend on Friday, Schumacher said these were both "accidents".

Like Senna, Schumacher is a flawed genius, and now more people know it. Personally, I like the way Senna did it better.

http://www.itv-f1.com/Feature.aspx?Type=General&PO_ID=36083

[Jims5543]

http://www.ferrariworld.com/FWorld/fw/index.jsp

[nostatic]

well, the Ferrari site backs MS. Now *that's a surprise...

[scottmandue]

Originally posted by motion
Nothing like kicking a guy when he's down.... my gut reaction here was to blame MS as well. But the more I think about it....... the guy is a finely honed tool. He's a machine. He rarely makes mistakes. He is very intelligent. Would he do something so stupid? No, I don't believe so. The outcome and backlash would be too predictable. There's just too much on the line to do something so stupid and obvious. He's matured A LOT in the past 10 years. He's an ambassador of the sport. I'm going to have to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

I agree, I only saw the three second clip of the "incident" they showed on race day and I couldn't judge much from that.
However I have a very hard time believing MS would try to put such a bonehead move. Did he really have that much to gain by pulling such a stunt?

Sure the other drivers bad mouth him... they are some of the highest paid athletes in the world... no egos here

Sad thing is if it had not happened it would have been a heck of a race.

[Jims5543]

Originally posted by nostatic
well, the Ferrari site backs MS. Now *that's a surprise...

The FIA did not bother to look at the in car telemetry and basically reacted to the outcry of the crowds (people like Briattore) instead of gathering the real hard data and making a knee jerk reaction.

Ferrari offered the data and it was declined.

[artplumber]

Whoa! Go away for awhile and this turns into FA vs MS!

Jim, I think you're reading that cut & paste incorrectly. Todt is telling you that the team tried to suggest that the tele explained things in MS's favor but "it (the team) was not taken into consideration" not that the tele data wasn't looked at by the FIA which may have reached a different conclusion. Certainly, the Crash.net article suggested that the tele was looked at by the FIA.

I agree with the others that this was a predominantly "suspicious" action, that had implications for the entire current method of qualys. Add MS's penchant for doing stupid things (again because he does have top talent and doesn't have to do them) and this only looks worse. The penalty? One can argue the severity, and I, too was surprised - maybe the FIA is tired of this stuff from Ferrari/MS?

OK, as to Alonso; he is very quick in these cars. He's also been very quick in karting which AFAIK don't have traction control, and is where most guys start. Is he the best? Who knows, but the Alonso/Renault is clearly at the top of the heap currently. Schu passed a great deal of people based on strategy at Monaco, and has lost to FA before when he had the quicker car/setup. Implying that Schu would have won if he'd started from pole or front row is just hot air - rank speculation. Frankly, it's just as likely that he would have tried to "take out" Alonso during a pass, and ended up in a barrier somewhere, then he wouldn't have gotten any points.

Randy,
Did Senna have a flaw?

[scottmandue]

Is MS really that bad of a driver? I see other drivers blocking, bumping, spinning and going off the track. These guys are getting paid a lot of money to win races and part of racing is for the manufactures and driver to take every advantage possible.
One F1 race I watched (I think it was last year) there was so much banging and bumping going on I though someone must have let NASCAR drivers in the cars.

Plus these guys are pushing their cars to the ragged edge... accidents happen... and when the guy you love to hate looses control and pushes your favorite driver off the track that makes him a dirty driver?

[Randy W]

Peter, Senna's battles with Prost are legendary. As teammates in 1989, Prost and Senna dueled into the last race of the season at Suzuka. Prost, refusing to yield when Senna attempted to pass, took out both cars and won the title. The very next year, on competing teams, the duo again raced for the title in the season's last race at Suzuka. This time, it was Senna who took out Prost and claimed the title. Senna said at that time his crash into Prost in 1990 at the first corner was an "accident", but later was man enough to admit it was a deliberate payback. Senna was headstrong, and like Shumacher was willing to win at all costs. He was also a genuine, passionate human being, and one of the best qualifying drivers and car control drivers (if not the best) of all time. His flaw was his unwillingness to admit he was wrong - I don't know maybe that's standard operating procedure for a race car driver (unless your Jackie Stewart). I wonder if Shumacher will ever come clean about his "accidents" - maybe after he retires or matures some more?

[nostatic]

egad...now let's morph into a senna v. prost battle

http://www.prostfan.com/senna1.htm

[Jims5543]

I honestly have only been following F-1 closely for about 5 years now and I guess MS has been on his best behavior because I have never seen any of this poor sportsmanship he is being accused of.

I remember last year Sato taking him out and the year before that JPM taking him out at Monaco while the safety car was out.

This just makes the season that much more interesting.

[Owain]

Originally posted by scottmandue
However I have a very hard time believing MS would try to put such a bonehead move. Did he really have that much to gain by pulling such a stunt?

Of course. Let's set the stage: MS was on his last lap (time for the session had expired, in the last session the drivers are allowed to finish the lap they're on), he so far had the fastest lap but (as he said in the post qualifying interviews) he knew that his sector times for the lap he was on were NOT better than his fastest lap so if there was going to be an improvement it would be small. All the other drivers were also on their last lap, their cars being in the best condition of the whole session so far: they're lightest on fuel, the tires that they mounted a couple of laps ago are up to temperature, everything is optimal. Barring being held up by a slower car or driver error this is very likely the fastest lap possible for every driver out there.

Then he got to La Rascasse. At this point MS KNEW that he wasn't quicker but was at least on an as-good lap. He was pushing very hard with the thought that others might be going quicker on this final lap (actually Alonso was up 0.3s on MS's fastest time by the end of the second sector). Turning into the corner he lost the rear of the car momentarily and after having to correct the car's line he knew that that small correction had cost him any chance of bettering his time.

From the on-board camera you can see him turn the wheel to correct, then return to steering through the corner. Strangely he then straightens the wheel again, heading for the outside barrier. Why did he do this? The corner is one of the slowest that these drivers face anywhere. After correcting for the original slide it's unlikely that the car is moving fast enough to lose traction again. What he's probably thinking is that his lap is blown, the possiblity that someone else could beat his time on this lap is high and he is stuck with the prospect of looking at the back of a Renault for 78 laps and not making any ground on FA in the championship.

Anyone who thinks this is out of character for MS hasn't been paying attention over his career. Find the clip of his coming-together with Villeneuve in '97. He has a bit of a tendancy to do these things when he's frustrated and desparate.

As for Alonso not slowing in that corner, he lost somewhere around 0.4s! How much slower did you want him to go? Would it be better if he had stopped and gotten out of his car to check that MS was ok?

[scottmandue]

I honesty don't know... where would MS would have started if this had not happened? In the first two rows? Does MS have time to figure all this out while whipping around in an F1 car and come up with the crafty idea of "I will just park it in this corner and slow everybody down"? Didn't he run the risk of having someone hit him as they came around the corner?