Michael Schumacher

July 21, 2002 7:09 AM

Michael Schumacher has won his fifth Formula 1 world championship. He equals Juan Manuel Fangio's forty-five year old record.
posted by riffola (16 comments total)

Schumacher also broke the record of winning the championship the fastest, and most consecutive point scoring finishes.

Simply unbelievable.
posted by riffola at 7:12 AM on July 21, 2002

Meanwhile, the starting grid was the leanest in decades, several teams face economic uncertainty, and I can't even remember an on-track pass during today's race aside from Kimi's late race mistake. Oooh, they passed each-other in the pits... Pinch me. At least Rubens will now be free to prove himself on a level playing field. I'm waiting for the coverage of the British and Australian touring car series to kick in before any exciting motorsport occurs on my television.

I must say though, that Schumacher is an incredible team builder. Comparing his pure driving skill against Fangio, Jim Clark or Senna seems rather pointless, but it's hard not to credit Schuey with his ability to feed the right data to his engineers, and give management the feedback they need to make important fiscal decisions. In today's racing, that may be more important than cat like reflexes.
posted by machaus at 7:30 AM on July 21, 2002

...and in an amazing a race as possible, no doubt. i was really pulling for the maclaren kid raikkonen who ran a simply stunning programme and ran into a bit of bad luck with less than 10 left. he looked really, eh, upset in the post-race conference. that said, schumacher deserves all the honor and praise (and money) he's receiving, he's simply the greatest driver in history (you east coasters who sleep in on sundays are missing watching the premier motorsportsman in history operating at his prime on a biweekly basis).

has this year of formula1 been great or what? (now that we have this championship business out of the way i'm looking forward to focusing more attention on following specific team progress, it's going to be interesting to see the evolution of some of these new teams, toyota and renault specifically).
posted by iceblink at 7:31 AM on July 21, 2002

...and in an amazing a race as possible, no doubt. i was really pulling for the maclaren kid raikkonen who ran a simply stunning programme and ran into a bit of bad luck with less than 10 left. he looked really, eh, upset in the post-race conference. that said, schumacher deserves all the honor and praise (and money) he's receiving, he's simply the greatest driver in history (you east coasters who sleep in on sundays are missing watching the premier motorsportsman in history operating at his prime on a biweekly basis).

has this year of formula1 been great or what? (now that we have this championship business out of the way i'm looking forward to focusing more attention on following specific team progress, it's going to be interesting to see the evolution of some of these new teams, toyota and renault specifically).
posted by iceblink at 7:37 AM on July 21, 2002

I don't follow F1 that much, so please forgive where necessary.

Wasn't Shumacher the guy who was basically given a first place in the final lap by his team-mate a month or so ago? I cannot remember the race, but his teammate led the entire race and in general, just ran better overall. In the final lap, he slowed down, allowed Schumacher to catch up then hit the brakes in the final straight.

How did that victory play into the points standing for Schumacher? Or was he pretty much a shoe in anyway?

Regardless, Schumacher is impressive. Even to a casual fan like me.
posted by lampshade at 8:34 AM on July 21, 2002

I'm just waiting for the Race people's decision whether the French win was legal or not - you see some people think Schumi overtook even when the yellow flag was shown - that would put him down to 4 wins. Then he'll have to win the German one... (I think he'll do that!! :D )

And I'm also waiting for Fiat's new ad - Michael Schumacher and Sachin Tendulkar - oh, what a treat!
posted by arnab at 8:38 AM on July 21, 2002

lampshade, you are correct, Schumacher was gifted the Austrian GP by his teammate. The link I posted above is to the MeFi thread that discussed that event. In the scheme of things, the team orders really didn't matter. However, Ferrari was probably thinking back to 1999 when Schumacher broke his leg. Anything can happen, and you have to be prepared for it, sporting or not.
posted by machaus at 8:41 AM on July 21, 2002

There were two yellow flags waved for McNish's engine blow up, but no red and yellow oil flags. Now Michael passed Kimi while Kimi was off the track, and when Kimi was back on the track Michael was actually ahead of Kimi so technically Kimi could not pass Michael when he rejoined the track.

Passing a driver who isn't on the track while the yellow flags are waved is perfectly ok.

lampshade, Rubens did move over for Michael, but that was in Austria. Ferrari lost three drivers championship in the last race of the year before, so they decided to not take chances. Formula 1 is a team sport, therefore team orders are allowed. Michael needed a win and not have Juan Pablo or Rubens finish second to clinch the title here in France, or he could finish second as long as Ralf didn't win and Rubens and Juan Pablo didn't score any points. The way things worked out Michael now has a 62 point lead, and there are only 60 points to be gained from the rest of the season.
posted by riffola at 8:46 AM on July 21, 2002

Machaus & Riffola - gotcha. Thanks for the explaination. I remember that thread about the Austrian GP now. Could not figure out where I had heard that info at that time. That was a good thread.

That particular night, I went out to a bar to watch the race knowing the outcome. The owner of the bar is a huge F1 fan and had not heard the news. He was looking bored. Ferrari was leading the entire race.

I kept telling him when to pay attention. Nothing specific, just that for the next few laps, here and there, that he should keep an eye out. Anyway, when that event came at the last lap he was beside himself. In fact, most of the ex-pats in the place were howling.

Sometimes spoilers are fun. I think I will go out tonight and catch the rebroadcast. (I don't have a TV at home).
posted by lampshade at 9:45 AM on July 21, 2002

I love racing. I love Formula 1. I love Ferrari.

But how is this even interesting anymore?

I want to watch cars race each other, not hopelessly chase the same guy every two weeks.
posted by dopamine at 12:34 PM on July 21, 2002

It was funny to hear the sports announcer on CNN International try to pronounce Juan Manuel Fangio yesterday.
posted by planetkyoto at 7:14 PM on July 21, 2002

I love racing. I love Formula 1. I hate Ferrari. I think they're ruining the sport. I normally don't have issues with money and sport, but in this case, I do. I hate that there's no real racing anymore (and the racing that there is, down the pack, doesn't get covered by the idiot directors, who think we all want to watch Schumi driving around by himself instead of people, you know, passing each other, even if it is for fourteenth place). I hate that Ferrari has forgotten that it's a sport, in favour of regarding it as a business (yes, they spend a lot of money and want to win, but they have no sense of sportsmanship and clearly don't care about the sport for its own sake). It's intrinsically a wonderful, exciting, beautiful sport, and yet, every couple of weeks, as I faithfully drag myself out of bed to watch Schumi driving around and winning, I almost wish, against my normal leanings, that they'd start adding NASCAR-style restrictions to the cars, to make the playing field a bit more level. But maybe I'm just grouchy because Villeneuve's fourth at the last race made me remember how long it's been since I could cheer for him to win, instead of just finish.
posted by biscotti at 7:44 PM on July 21, 2002

I stopped watching F1 a long time ago, when it became a procession every race instead of just most of them (I still love to watch the start and first lap, though). This is a real shame, as I consider F1 to be the pinnacle of motorsport and the place where even absolute cutting-edge technology is commonplace.

Unfortunately, I do not think that Nascar-style regulations would "fix" F1, they would just turn it into another Indycar series. F1 will need to find ways to generate some interest in the racing itself, as they have done recently with the re-introduction of fuel stops.
posted by dg at 8:28 PM on July 21, 2002

They should base the following race's grid positions on the previous race's finishing order reversed.
posted by jalexei at 3:38 AM on July 22, 2002

Saw the event on rebroadcast last night.

Yeah, it was an excersize in waiting for Schumacher to find a point to take the lead and win. That Ferrari has some kick. Raikkonen could not shake him for the entire race.

I don't know all the underlying soap-opera stuff about Ferrari and Schumacher, but it all makes sense. A couple of people who know F1 better than I, were saying the same thing last night. Just about every sport has its team that outspends the rest and the sport suffers because of it. Shame.

It was still fun to watch. Thanks for the reminder this morning. I would have missed it otherwise.
posted by lampshade at 4:10 AM on July 22, 2002

The race I saw, Raikkonen would have had it had he not overcooked it going into the hairpin. If I remember correctly, he had actually been slowly putting distance on Schumacher until that point.

Granted, Schumacher probably never would have been behind except for the earlier penalty.
posted by tirade at 9:53 AM on July 22, 2002