Schumacher's return..

[holidaysong]

What do people make of Michael Schumacher's return to Formula 1 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8429186.stm)? I think it'll be great for the sport. It'll really put the cat among the pigeons. Hopefully with a strong Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren next year, he can be strong with Mercedes and make it a year to remember. This year was a bit of an anti climax after the showdown in Sao Paulo last season but I can't wait for the 2010 season!

[TheBoss]

I think the sport has not been the same since the likes of Schuey, Hakkinen etc left. The sport has lost personalities, the drivers now are a bit robotic. Seeing that he is about 6/1 to win the title, that itself is unbelievable value, I think he will walk it.

[Schumi]

Yay! :D

[John83]

There's a bit in the pilot of Boston Legal that comes to mind:

You remember Muhammad Ali's last fight? We had ringside seats. He lost so pathetically to Larry Holmes. We were so crushed. The tragedy that night, Denny, wasn't that he couldn't still box. He could. The tragedy was that he still thought he was Ali.I hope he's competitive. I don't want to see Schumi scratching out a point here and there. It just wouldn't be him any more.

[bennocelt]

I think the sport has not been the same since the likes of Schuey, Hakkinen etc left. The sport has lost personalities, the drivers now are a bit robotic. Seeing that he is about 6/1 to win the title, that itself is unbelievable value, I think he will walk it.

100% agree here, wow 6/1 isnt a bad price too:)

[The Fly]

I can't wait for the new season to arrive. I never thought I'd see the name 'Schumacher' lining up on an F1 grid again, well at least until the arrival of his son in the sport, who's supposed to be very talented. I've watched F1 since 1993 (age 13), and since Ayron Senna's tragic death the following year, I've followed it fairly religiously. I consider myself lucky to have seen Michael Schumacher race and would regard him as the greatest sportsman of my lifetime.

But anyway.....if the Mercedes car is competitive he'll challenge for the title.

Here's his comeback (work in progress) - http://www.chrislabrooy.com/comeback_work_in_progress.html :D

[The Fly]

So it’s happening: Michael Schumacher is on the comeback trail, training like hell each day, getting himself ready, racing’s drug still in his system. And still the clock ticks. There’s a song by Ry Cooder, ‘Flathead One More Time’, where the character of the piece, an ageing ex-desert-speed-trials racer, is being lured back into his cockpit. ‘Three o’clock this morning, I woke up in a dream, thought I heard a flathead motor roar, thought I smelled gasoline. A feeling came upon me that I ain’t had in years, something like a hot, dry wind whistling past my ears. There’s a memory that’s still burning way down in my mind. That’s why I’m going out and trying a flathead. One. More. Time.’

It could just as easily be about Michael and F1. He was devastated when he was unable to stand in for Felipe Massa this year, saying to friends that briefly his life had meaning again. If his neck injury is sorted, he can do this. He can come back and still be the Michael Schumacher he used to be, still able to commit a car to a knife-edge limit going into a corner, sitting it out, making not a single further input lest it fall off that edge. He can keep pounding out laps like these until what was an impossible horizon is a target in his immediate sights; he can adapt his driving style around whatever is required, can change it by the lap. He can still leave a telemetry trace that will have his engineer and team-mate confused, can still weave his magic until time itself surrenders lamb-like to his fabulous powers. Just his presence in a team will have it buzzing to his pitch. He brings a power to a team beyond that of being a staggeringly good racing driver. Rival teams would be competing not just against a fast driver in a good car but against ‘Michael Schumacher’ and the intimidation of his legend.

HAS HE STILL GOT WHAT IT TAKES?

He’s three seasons out of racing, but that’s no debarring thing. The limited pre-season testing opportunity might mean he’d start a little rustier than he may have done otherwise, but you’d fancy that to be barely visible even from the inside. At this age drivers don’t slow through a diminution of skill, but of desire. You need to want it very badly to have yourself at the pitch where every split-second of lap time matters so intensely at every braking zone and every corner entry; you need to be mentally hugely committed to maintain that level for a sustained period. There are drivers – highly rated ones – in F1 who lack that final bit of desire, but if Michael is to be the Michael of old he cannot. As such, you would question why he stopped in the first place. For one, it was a retirement that he was rather pressured into and tied up with the internal politics of Ferrari, of the power struggle between Luca di Montezemolo and Jean Todt. For another, he probably just needed a break, not an end from F1’s intensity after 15 years of it.

There’s a fallacy built up in the years Schumacher’s been away that Massa was already getting the upper hand on him in his final season. It’s nonsense. It’s based on no more than the fact that Felipe won in Turkey and Brazil in the second half of the season. But in both of those races there were specific reasons why Schumacher couldn’t fight him. In Turkey an inopportunely-timed safety car meant he had to be queued in the pitlane, meaning Alonso’s Renault was subsequently between the Ferraris, thereby forming a protective buffer for Massa. The only reason he was behind Massa in the first place was the much heavier fuel load he’d take into Q3 and, when allowance was taken of that, he was comfortably faster than his junior team mate.

In Brazil he could take no part in Q3 because of a fuel-pump failure, leaving Massa to take an uncontested pole, the foundation of his victory. Looking at Q2, where straightforward comparison was possible in each of those races, in Turkey Schumacher was a whopping 1.2s faster than Massa, in Brazil he was 0.462s ahead. In the 54 Qualifying sessions of the 2006 season, Massa was genuinely quicker than Schumacher only once – in Q2 at Monza, by 0.128s. Michael’s average advantage over Massa in those 54 sessions was in excess of half a second. That’s a staggering degree of superiority over a driver we now know is very fast indeed, stats that Kimi Raikkonen would kill for, stats that will almost certainly not be matched next year by Fernando Alonso. There is no evidence whatsoever that Michael’s pace was falling off in his last season.

Let’s just suppose it’s all going to happen, that he’s committed to coming back, that he joins Mercedes, that Ross Brawn and the team have come up with another title-contending car and that Michael is able to continue at the level he left off in 2006. That’s a lot of ifs, but let’s add another – that the 2010 McLaren is comparably good, leaving us with: Lewis Hamilton vs Michael Schumacher. There are going to be all sorts of other intriguing battles going on next year – Hamilton/Button, Alonso/Massa for example – but this is potentially the most fascinating of all. How will the swashbuckling inspirational young charger that doesn’t recognise anything in a racing car as impossible fare against the old miracle worker? Which is the irresistible force, which the immovable object? Bring a fully competitive Ferrari and Alonso into the mix, not to mention Massa, Button and Vettel, and you are into the realms of fantasy come real.

Ultimately Michael Schumacher is someone who since childhood has defined himself as a racing driver. Since stopping three years ago he has given no obvious indication of being someone at ease with being an ex-racing driver, of knowing what it is he wants to do with the rest of his life. That’s a very heavy thing to have hanging over you. What better escape from it than returning to the intensity of the cockpit, where the all-consuming demands leave no room for those bigger, more fundamental questions? Just the unfurling race track infront of you, the reassuring scream of an engine behind, the comforting tone of Ross Brawn in your earpiece asking for a miracle. One. More. Time.

[Schumi]

Where is that from?

[osarusan]

From Autosport editor Mark huhghes, apparently.

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?p=29206234

post 514.

[twoenz]

It's amazing that Schumi's coming back as a hero in the media. The man nearly killed the sport by being so good! It's shaping up to be an excellent season. Turning into a 3 tier system: you're going to have McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari battling for the title, Red Bull, Renault and Williams running a bit behind them and all the other cars lugging their Cosworths around the track at a slower pace.

[Schumi]

It's easy to say that now but who thought Brawn would win both championships this time last year? Who's to say that someone won't come up with this year's version of a double diffuser?

[the 12 th man]

Like him or loathe him (I like him) either way- it's a great interest generator in the sport.

I hope he wipes the floor with the younger guys:) and it's been a long time since I was really looking forward to a season.

[Extra Extra]

Will be tough for Schumacher to win it on his return. Alonso, Massa, Hamilton & even Button or Vettel could all challenge & make it very competitive.

[elroy]

Will be tough for Schumacher to win it on his return. Alonso, Massa, Hamilton & even Button or Vettel could all challenge & make it very competitive.

I dont rate Button at all, I think he as fortunate to win the championship last year. He had a car vastly superior to the others for most of the season and that was the reason he won the championship. His form for the second half the season was quite poor.

Alonso, Hamilton and Vettel are all top class and will give Schuey a run for his money. If the Merc is as near as good as the Brawn was last year he will have one hell of a car. If Schuey had been in the Brawn last year he wouldve had the title done and dusted several races early.