Michael Schumacher - Controversy Meets Perfection

in DRIVERS F1 2010 by admin — March 13, 2010 at 7:45 am | 9 comments

Michael Schumacher: Controversy meets Perfection

Statistically he is the greatest grand prix driver of all time. It cannot be refuted. His won more world championships than anyone in the history of Formula 1, more races than all the drivers on the grid put together and set more fastest laps than Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost combined. So why has Michael Schumacher’s return to action been met with as much scepticism as it has support?

Schumacher’s career has been riddled with controversy. Not only is he the only driver to be disqualified from a world championship, he has also been involved in several championship deciding collisions and often benefited from numerous amounts of contentious team orders. During his career he angered a large proportion of the Formula 1 fan base and had some very public quarrels with his rivals, it is therefore not surprising that some fans will not be welcoming the German’s presence this season.

The first of Schumacher’s moments of controversy was the infamous collision with Damon Hill during the 1994 championship decider at the Australian Grand Prix. The race was a one on one dog fight for championship glory between the two drivers. Schumacher was leading the race and seemed to be in control of his own destiny until lap 35 when his Benetton ran wide and hit a wall side on. The incident allowed rival Damon Hill to close in and make a move on him going into the Flinders Street corner. Although Hill had the racing line Schumacher blocked his effort to overtake which forced the two into a collision. The Germans car was mounted onto two wheels and eliminated immediately from the race, Hill simply had to finish the race to be crowned World Champion. The damage to the Britons car however was terminal and Hill was forced to aguishly retire in the pits. The collision was deemed a racing incident and allowed Schumacher to win his maiden world title by default.

Earlier during that same season he was disqualified from two Grand prix and banned from competing in another two. During the British Grand Prix he failed to take a ten second stop and go penalty for overtaking Hill on the warm up lap. He then continued to race despite being black flagged. He was later disqualified from the final classification and handed a two race ban which he took during rounds twelve and thirteen at Italy and Portugal. Prior to the ban being emplaced on him he was also disqualified from the Belgian Grand Prix, round 11, due the skid block under his car being excessively worn thus giving him an unfair aerodynamic advantage.

All these controversies however make Schumacher’s achievement to become World Champion that year all the more impressive. His points tally was so commanding that he won the title despite effectively not competing in four Grand Prix and retiring from another; a light of supremacy shining through his darker side.

In 1997 Schumacher became the first, and only, driver to ever be disqualified from an entire World Championship season. The penalty happened following an “instinctive” manoeuvre to block Jacques Villeneuve to overtake him on lap 48 of the European Grand Prix at Jerez. The Canadian had out braked Schumacher turning into the Dry Sac corner and was ahead of the German when suddenly the Ferrari of Schumacher turned into the side of Villeneuve’s Williams. The incident forced Schumacher to retire from the Grand Prix but Villeneuve raced on, despite suffering heavy damage, to finish in third and take the crown. Following the incident Schumacher was disqualified from the Championship but allowed to hold on to the statistics he had accumulated during the season. The incident was the second championship deciding collision of the German’s career.

Despite the controversy created in 1997 Michael Schumacher had proved that Ferrari could once again be competitive. At the time the Italian giants had not produced a world champion since Jody Scheckter in 1979. The German had taken on a dangerous risk moving from Benetton to Ferrari and his class was shining through.

Controversy followed Schumacher into the 1998 season. One of the most bizarre moments came when he won the British Grand Prix despite not serving a ten second stop and go penalty that was imposed on him for lapping Alexander Wurz under the safety car. The penalty was imposed with twelve laps to go. Rules state that a driver must serve the penalty within three laps of it being handed out, Schumacher didn’t serve the penalty until twelve laps later. Ferrari claimed to be confused on the conditions of the penalty being imposed on him and argued that they believed ten seconds was going to be added to the Germans race time. Schumacher finally served his stop and go penalty at the end of the final lap but due to the layout of the pit lane, Schumacher crossed the finish line before he reached the Ferrari pit. After much debate no penalty was imposed on the German and he was awarded the victory ahead of Mclaren’s Mika Hakkinen.

Later on during the same season Schumacher became involved in a heated argument with McLaren’s David Coulthard following a collision under heavy spray during the Belgian Grand Prix. A furious Schumacher marched to the McLaren pit to argue with Coulthard forcing Ferrari and Mclaren mechanics to hold back the respective drivers.

In the new millennium the seven time world champion managed to avoid moments of serious controversy until the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix. Ferrari team mate Rubens Barichello had dominated the event throughout the weekend, qualifying in pole position and leading the race from the start until the final few metres where he was forced to yield to allow Schumacher to win the race under the orders of Jean Todt “for the sake of the championship.” The event severely tarnished the credibility of Formula 1 racing and to this day remains a sensitive issue for Barichello and Formula 1 fans alike.

Throughout his career there has always been a distinctive difference between Schumacher and his team mate. The German maestro always got the number one treatment. The only exception to this general rule came in the 1999 season where he attempted to help team mate Eddie Irvine win the world championship following an injury which rule him out for most of the season. To some fans the preferential treatment he enjoyed while he was at Benetton and Ferrari make his achievements less credible.

The final moment of controversy in an illustrious career occurred in a qualifying session for the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix. Competition between Schumacher and newly crowned World Champion Fernando Alonso was at its most intense with the young Spaniard consistently beating the experienced German. The difficult overtaking conditions during the race make qualifying on pole a paramount importance. Alonso was very much the on form driver and a desperate Schumacher resorted to parking his car at the Racasse corner in a bid to slow Alonso down and prevent him from securing pole position. It is not known if the incident was intentional or not but the German found himself subject to much scrutiny and was forced to start from the back of the grid by the race stewards.

With so much controversy many people overlook his career achievements, which are as numerous as his wrong doings. On his return to Grand Prix racing he will be the only driver on the grid to have beat Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell in a Formula 1 race. He is also the only driver to have won a race on every circuit that he has competed on and, most impressively, he has won five back to back world titles. Added to this he is the only driver to finish every race of a season on the podium, win seven consecutive Grand Prix and achieve a record 154 podium finishes. Such statistics provide overwhelming evidence to support claims that he is the perfect Grand Prix racer, unfortunately, the amount of controversies he has created make it just as easy to argue otherwise.

There have been times when watching him race has been like poetry in motion. His first win for Ferrari in Catalunya 1996 was a master class of dominance once he took the lead. He spent much of the race lapping three seconds faster than the rest of the field and lapped the entire field up to third place. Following the grand prix Stirling Moss, a motor racing ace, commented “It was not a race, it was a demonstration of brilliance.” Most importantly the win symbolised a welcome return to form for Ferrari.

His performance in Monaco 1997 was equally as impressive, beating second place driver Rubens Barichello by 53 seconds. The winning margin is all the more impressive when you take into consideration the treacherous conditions and the fact that he lost ten seconds of his race time following an error at Sainte Devote where he was forced to take the escape road.

Many fans will argue that his greatest race was his last hurrah at Interlagos, 2006. Despite not winning, or even finishing on the podium, the German put in a majestic performance to finish in fourth place having won six races earlier that season. During the race he pulled off two supreme over taking manoeuvres on the Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella and the McLaren of Kimi Raikkonen in a brave attempt to help Ferrari beat Renault to the constructor’s crown. Ferrari eventually fell four points short but Schumacher delivered a performance equal to any of his other career highs.

Off the track too he has conducted himself impeccably. Unlike most sports stars of today he has successfully kept his private life behind closed doors. His finest off the track moment came following the 2004 Tsunami in Asia where he donated $10 million of his own personal fortune to aid the victims. Schumacher was affected personally by the tragedy as a close friend died in the chaos. The amount was more than any other sports star and even tops efforts made by some governments.

Schumacher’s career has seen moments of greatness tarnished by moments of madness and bad sportsmanship. What side of Formula 1’s most successful driver will fans see in 2010

James Walker