It’s like watching a perfectly-made cyborg in action when Michael starts up his Ferrari. Yesterday was his 10th win in 11 Formula 1 races this year, with only a not-his-fault crash in Monaco keeping him from the sweep. It’s incredible to watch - he simply does everything right, and so does the entire Ferrari team. The others are all pretty good, and have improved themselves over the last few years while Michael’s been winning, but they’re just demoralized. This is the most dominated season there’s ever been, by the best driver ever - there’s no more room for debate.
And he’s always gracious and sportsmanlike, now that he’s always winning. No more whining about how anything that went wrong was the other guys’ fault, no more deliberate collisions with anyone with the temerity to be leading him, no more berating his team members if he broke something. He even shows respect for the playing of “Fratelli d’Italia” on the podium now, instead of pretending to conduct the singing of his pit crew. Even his domestique, Rubens Barrichello, is a gentleman in every way, and totally boring.
It used to be *fun * hating him, like it’s fun hating the Yankees or Man Utd. It put a lot of spice into the races, anticipating when he’d blow up or thinking of something asswipish we hadn’t seen from him before. That’s over. Formula 1 isn’t fun to watch anymore - it’s all about wondering how Ferrari will adjust their pit stop strategy to get Michael the lead, and knowing he won’t give it up after that. Well, perhaps there’s the fun of watching Sato and Raikonnen blow engines, and the occasional crash like Trulli’s at Silverstone, but, dammit, I wanna see *racing * and I want to *hate * somebody! And Michael and Ferrari, you’re not giving it to me anymore. It’s all your fault.
By contrast, may I just note that Juan Pablo Montoya is possibly the single most whiny bitch that F1 has ever had, in my recollection? This is a considerable achievement given the competition, including as it does Jacques Villeneuve and other inflated egos too numerous to mention. My hat would be off to him but I’m afraid he’d accuse me of distracting him and costing him the chance of victory. Was he like this when he raced Indycars?
I’ve been a Tifosi since I got into F1 sometime around 1991. Back then Ferrari were a joke - bits fell off cars for no apparent reason, drivers would come into the pits and find the pit crew wasn’t ready for them, and in particular I remember a camera falling off Alesi’s car and smashing Berger’s suspension behind him, taking out both cars - but I stuck by them. When the news came out that Schumacher had signed for them, I was overjoyed. Finally Ferrari would be back where they deserved, battling hard for wins and even the championship, rather than doing a Johnny Herbert and earning them through others’ misfortune.
Schumacher gradually helped turn Ferrari into a slick, well-oiled unit with perfect pit-stops, even better strategies, and incredible reliability…
…and then it got boring. To quote an episode of “The Scary Door” in Futurama:
“A casino where I’m winning? I must have died and gone to heaven! Wait… a casino where I always win? That’s boring! I must actually be in… HELL!”. I even find it hard to cheer for Barrichello who is easily the nicest guy in Formula 1 (that I’ve met, anyway) and is capable of some great moves, like on Trulli on the last lap in France.
So even though we’re coming at it from different directions, I totally agree Elvis. Ferrari and Schumacher have made F1 boring. They aren’t the only ones though. The rest of the drivers have absolutely no personality, and Raikonnen in particular needs only to open his mouth to send me into a deep, coma-like sleep. What the sport needs, along with more competition, is a couple of Sennas, Hunts, Prosts and Irvines, people who’ll inject some interest again.
Hmm… nope, I’m still going with David Coulthard for that title. And with the attitude that he’s got, it’s the only title he’ll ever earn.
I don’t recall Montoya being noticeably whiny in his CART years, but that may be because (1) he usually won, including at Indy, and (2) everybody was complaining about CART and IRL management anyway, and with very good cause.
Yeah, it was close but I disqualify him on the grounds that he’s moved to a more stoical variety of griping; he’s whining, sure, but you don’t get the impression that his heart’s in it any more. However if there were a prize for the driver with the highest overratedness/chin size product, Coulthard would certainly stand head and jawbone above the rest of the field.
Well, the last race I watched… heck, where was it? Where the other gentleman had the lead at the start, and Ferrari did a simply amazing four pit stop to win race… brilliant, but insane. Michael is as good as Fangio. At least. I can’t call him better, because if he raced with Fangio’s cars, he’d be dead now.
But remember this. Jordan. Schumacher. Alex Rodriguez. We’re getting a lot of people in sports who are, simply, the best ever, these days.
In twenty years, there will be people better than they ever were.
It’s too bad we didn’t have few years of a Senna-Schumacher rivalry. Now that would have been fun to watch. Senna was the last driver I really loved watching.
Fangio!, not only a great driver but also a gentleman. I am only 24 and I don’t want to sound like an old conservative man but I miss the time when sportmen were examples to follow.
As I see it, a large part of F1’s problem is its relatively incestuous and stagnant pool of drivers. Among the “top” drivers there’s relatively little turnover, merely circulation. Kimi Raikkonen is clearly highly talented, but IMO he’s one of very few genuinely talented people to have broken into the top ranks in the last few years. In any sane environment, Coulthard would be out on his arse, Barrichello wouldn’t be driving the best car in the field, Jacques Villeneuve wouldn’t have had the time in the top cars that he did, etc. etc. Ralf shows moments of promise but has been given far more time to prove himself than anyone whose surname’s not Schumacher would have been. Likewise, Montoya hasn’t proved to be all that and a side of fries. Why isn’t there more poaching from lower formulas? Yeah, yeah, “got to gain experience of an F1 car, it’s a whole different ball game”, but instead of wasting years hoping that DC is going to morph into more than a chin and a wobbly lip, why not give those years to someone with actual talent to actually gain that experience? It’d probably be cheaper, to boot.
For some reason there seems to be very little imagination shown by the top teams when selecting drivers, and lamentably little graduation from lower teams. That’s no great mystery, either; the lower teams are largely staffed by undertalented, overwalleted journeymen. It seems that to make a breakthrough these days, one must get a test drive with a top team and hope like hell that one of the main drivers is badly injured. Not a sensible way of spotting new talent, to be perfectly honest.
All of this is not to take away from Schumacher; he’s every bit the driver he appears. But of his main opponents to date (Hill, Villeneuve, Hakkinen, Montoya,…), only Hakkinen has come close to being a Prost to his Senna, and he retired as soon as he fulfilled that potential. Small wonder he’s considering a comeback.
The only driver I can think of to start in a low team and work his way up recently is Fernando Alonso who made his debut in a Minardi. It’s difficult to see Baumgartner, Bruni or Pantano making similar progress.
The reason there isn’t much poaching of talent from the lower formulas is that F1 teams (with the exception of the top 2 or 3) survive on sponsorship money. The money coming from the FIA is not enough to run their testing and development programs, and they need outside finance. Talent aside, any aspiring F1 driver will need to be able to bring in sponsors - and not too many can bring in that kind of money. So until the system is overhauled (i.e. the FIA loosens its purse strings), we’re not going to be seeing much rotation of drivers.
That said, of the current crop of new drivers I see exciting times ahead with Raikonnen, Alonso, Webber, Button, Trulli. On the fringes of this group, I see Sato and Fisichella…
Senna was a :wally and I thank Schumacher for (eventually) totally erasing him from the record books. If he hadn’t been killed when he was, he would have cried himself to death or taken out half the field in a fit of rage after the continuous ass-kicking Schumacher would have given him.
How can anyone not like DC? From what I’ve seen, he seems to be a truly nice fellow. But what do I know? As far as his talet in concerned, he was a legitimate World Championship contender for several years. But no one will ever remember him because of Michael. Kinda like Rene Arnoux. If not for Prost or Piquet, he would have been a World Champion. But no one will recognize his name.
Actually, just this last weekend I was talking about the sport with someone and we were musing about how many careers Schumacher has basicly ruined.
As for the processional quality of the racing, all I can offer is that there is still World Rally to watch!
CoughAustria 2002…
:mad:
And as for Schumi’s crash at Monaco not being his fault, not even an Alex Yoong would brake suddenly in the middle of a dark tunnel with a train of cars behind him. MS did the same at Monza 2000 and knocked Button out.Now it’s come back and bit him
Huh? Montoya swerved into Schumacher. What else was Michael supposed to do, ram him anyway?
I don’t like Coulthard because he hasn’t ever taken advantage of his abilities. He’s been content to finish near the front when his car would let him, but has never gone all-out to try to win even one race that I recall.
No, no no. Mikey locked up in the tunnel, and Juan had no option but to swerve to the right. Michael then pinched him between the wall and his right side wheels, sending him into a spin left into the barrier. Completely and totally Schumacher’s fault.
I have to disagree with you about DC. He has some very good drives and some quality race wins. (How long have you followed F1?) He was a legitimate condender for the championship. I think he does the best he can with the equipment he is given, and is very realistic about his chances any given race. I will conceed that he is on the decline at this point, and may be better off retireing than taking the “Alesi career curve” into the toilet. But if I was in his shoes, I would drive as long as someone let me. I mean really, what better job in the world is there than “Formula One driver”?
It wasn’t clear in the bad lighting that Schumi locked up. Whatever.
I’ve been following F1 for about 10 years, since you ask, most of Coulthard’s career - in most of which he hasn’t been able to consistently outperform his own teammate in an identical car, which is the truest measure. He has always lacked the aggressiveness needed to be the winner his talent would have allowed him to be. I agree he’s stayed in the sport for the money and the babes, and I would gladly do the same.
I would disagree with the assertion that David Coulthard has ever been a championship contender. As far as I can see he has consistently been outperformed by his teammates. Also, considering the seemingly cast gulf in talent currently between him and Raikonnen, I’d be surprised if he has a drive for next season, particularly with MacLaren, a team who don’t take kindly to losing.
McLaren has already signed Montoya away from Williams for 2005. I doubt they’d dump Raikonnen after last year - this year’s problems have been the engine’s fault, not his.
I just want to say, Kimi is my boyfriend, and as soon as I find out the names of those $#@! French supermodels that seem to follow him everywhere, I’m going to kick their asses.
He’s so cute when he goes tharn in front of the camera.
Coulthard will most likely end up in the Jag next year, and will mark the begining of the rapid decent into obscurity. Lesser drivers have been crowned champion. They just had a bit more luck than David.
Next season should be fun: Ralf in the Toyota and Juan in the McLaren. Lets just hope Toyota spends a little of that money and really develops something good. Eh, maybe the season after next…but sooner or later Toyota will be the ones to beat.
