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We have to wait for the next season to see where he really can get it! Though Brawn said something about a really big updgrade for Valencia. Maybe from there he starts the winning ways?

I love Schu so it's great to see him back. I think he was a bit so-so at the start but has picked up quite a lot.

After today, I'm starting to think that's it's inevitable Michael will finish sooner rather than later. He doesn't like looking like a fool, let alone being beaten by his team mate. I think he may pack it in at the end of the season, hence the Kubica rumours (although that would be harsh on Heidfeld)

A real shame that it's going to end this way. I never liked him in his "first career" as they call it now, but I've been wanting him to do well this season so we can have a few scraps at the front. But clearly that isn't going to happen any time soon. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he's out before the end of the season now

Well, why is he looking like a fool?? Just because of that result today??
It is pretty obvious that this car has become horrible to drive. You could see it from Schumacher's onboard camera during the practice session: oversteering and sliding especially in the fast section around the turns 19 and 20 . They are not able to get the tires working, they are even slower on option tires (which is...well). Even Rosberg lost a lot of his earlier pace throughout the last couple of races which is all because of the car.
Schumacher's driving skills and talent is as good as ever. He had some fantastic moments this year, like the pass on Button, the move on Fernando in Monaco...
All this moments don't make him look like a fool if you ask me.
Montreal wasn't a bad race either. Certainly not his worst performance ever as Martin Brundle said (BBC post race journalism was the worst I have ever seen by the way). It was just a lot of bad luck.
He won't pull the plug by the end of the season.
There were years at Ferrari when everyone thought "why the hell is he doing this!?"...

No, because he's been poor all year. As Eddie Jordan said during the BBC quali programme today, if it was any other driver, his head would be called for

The car is decent enough. Rosberg has to drive it as well and has beaten him regularly. So that's no excuse. He's just not up to it anymore. I don't think it's age because Rubens is clearly still at his best. I guess it's the fact that he's spent so much time out that he's lost that edge he used to have. He's still got the racecraft but there's no point if you haven't got the pace anymore. And he's been outpaced by Rosberg in nearly every weekend

As I said, I want him to do well. I want to see him battling with the guys at the front. But it isn't happening. I know he's new to Valencia but so's Liuzzi and he was barely outqualified by Sutil, so again, no excuse. And he was abysmal in Montreal, all things considered - a circuit he's won at many times and he was nowhere all weekend, not just the race

of course his pace was far off in Montreal, after all he was on the crappy soft tires for a big portion of the race

Yeah but he qualified 13th, half a second behind Rosberg in Q2. And that was the day before

Today's qualifying and indeed the whole weekend so far has convinced me that he is becoming more like Alan Jones than Niki Lauda.

He obviously doesn't possess the skills he once had in the quantities that he had them. The Michael of old could take a bad car and drive around the problems. This Michael can't. Rosberg had his number by 6 tenths of a second in qualifying, the second-largest gap between team-mates. You can throw every excuse you like about him not understanding the car, about him struggling to come to terms with the new rules, about how needs to learn the tracks...but by this stage of the season, halfway through, none of it washes anymore. The Michael of old didn't need excuses.

I think Ross will have a word with him before long and persuade him not to take up the option on the other 2 years, before he sours his reputation permanently.



Still no reason to go Hungary 06 on everyone who tried to overtake him.

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

P6 in Bahrain (one place behind Rosberg)
Melbourne, would have been 3rd at turn 1 but then got hit by Alonso (who got a push from Button) and had to change his front wing
Sepang, retirement
Shanghai was a poor performance, yes
Barcelona P4 and even passed Button on the outside (ahead of Rosberg)
Monaco, well a great move on Alonso was later penalized, we all know this story (ahead of Rosberg till then)
Turkey P4 (ahead of Rosberg)
In Montreal he was 3rd but then suffered a puncture after avoiding contact with Kubica.

I agree that these results are certainly nothing to get overly excited about but it is far away from being poor.

i belive in schumi, but he cant do nothing with a crap car, he needs a good car then he will show the young guns, but currently we must wait and hope that mercedes will get some big updates that make the car faster

Yes!

Mercedes, please give Schumi a better car!!!!!

Rosberg has the same "shit" car and he's generally getting decent results with it

I take it that the team must be horribly biased towards him, then

My thinking is that a 'crap Ferrari' in the 90s still had the ability to be 2nd or 3rd best car despite maybe being nearly 1s/lap slower. Nowadays, 1s slower translates into being 15th or 16th maybe. The grid is a lot closer whilst the Bridgestone tyres were sculpted to suit Schumi's style in the early 00s.

_________________
Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

I think, that he simply need more time to get grips with modern F1 car.
It's not so easy with current rules- testing ban makes it difficult.
With old rules (with testing allowed) he would've been using every opportunity to drive and gain more confidence in car.

So let's wait for 2011- he should impress (with good car). If not- he should retire.

So far, the few times he had a clear race, he finished 4th twice, so there is still some potential.
I think he's still a decent driver but as others said, he seems to be missing the little thing that always made the difference even in a bad car.
But if they can't start in the top 10 anymore, it's likely he'll get into more troubled situations in the midfield like the past 2 GPs.
Probably the fact that he was hired late in the offseason and Brawn didnt have as much budget
made it hard for the team/driver chemistry to really work.
It feels painful watching him overtaken by all sides like Canada and China.
Apart from the car's performance, another disappoinment is where is the Ross Brawn magic on strategic calls, so many bad breaks with tyres and Satety Car?
They used to pull the magic trick so often to take advantage of situations at Benetton and Ferrari.
He's probably busier now that he runs the team, and I read Schumacher doesnt have smooth communications with his race engineer Andrew Shovlin (who was with Button last year on the way to their title).

Jean-Louis Moncet's blog: http://blog.autoplus.fr/moncet/2010/06/ ... allemands/
Bing translation:
http://www.microsofttranslator.com/BV.a ... lemands%2F

Unless Mercedes want to pull more effort building on this year's experience and design a car more to his liking, then it may not be worth continuing next year.

I doubt that it is possible nowadays to win anything in a crappy car. Just look at the last races, it was all up to Red Bull or McLaren and as long as their cars do not suffer any failure, this won't change this season. And seriously it looks like Mercedes is one of the only teams that is making no progress right now, as they were top 3 at the beginning of the season. Right now they struggle to get into top 10. So, no good car, no chance. In addition, as some already mentioned, Formula 1 is different now, tyres are so important and it looks like Michael struggles with the car to get them to the opt. temperature. And then there is no refueling and we all know that Michael used to be the BEST at his in-and outlap before the pitstop and always drove fastest laps. Well now, refueling isnt allowed, and with it his ability is of no importance anymore. I seriously believe, that Michael struggles to perform well in modern F1 cars because they dont fit his driving style. A crappy car wont make it easier for him.

Well I've been off for some days...so my thoughts to the whole thing here:
1. You can't really win in todays F1 without a good car. And to say that old Michael could do it is not completeley right if you look at the first Ferrari days where he really didn't win very often. Best example is Lewis Hamilton the wunderkind which had an end in his wonders when the car got bad.
2. Todays F1 is closer. So you can't say in former times Michael used to be so good with a bad car, because there are even the small teams much closer than they used to.
3. Todays testing ban. If you look at the enourmous amount of testing that Michael and Ferrari used to do in his former years you can imagine how hard it is for him to get warm with the new cars.
4. Only because a driver has bad results in two races he won't be driven out of the car immediately, that's to be honest simply crap.
5. Ross Brawn genius in strategy had some breakdowns on which Michael has no influence
6. Overtaking is not so easy anymore. That was Michael Schumachers big ability to threaten so competetors with pressure that he could overtake them. But that was only possible because the cars weren't so bad in the slipstream than they nowadays.
And finalley take a look how long it took michael schumacher to get his first ferrari title in a new team that was four years. To finish him after half a season is a little bit premature. So just take your time and you will see that he has still his racing abilities;-)

I don't think this year Mercedes percentage wise to the real top pace is any worse than say the 96 Ferrari. The difference however is that whereas Ferrari was probably equal 2nd, Mercedes are 4th. Schumacher just needed the Williams to go wrong and he'd be right there, now he needs 6-7 cars to go wrong and the further you are down the grid, inevitable you have more difficulties.

Looks like Schumacher and Mercedes have finally understood their 2010 is over and have to prepare for 2011:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85080
I really hope it pays off next year, would be nice to have then up there with the other top teams.

So Mercedes are less than half way through a season and having constantly said "we're still fighting for the title" Brawn and Schumi have now conceded that 2011 should get their full attention. Hmmm, really didn't see that one coming. I really cannot see Schumi seeing out the season. Schumi has had a few ok races this season, but nothing decent by his standards. How much longer will he put up the front that he is "enjoying" racing for mediocre placings before finally calling it a day.