Poll over: MSC will officially come back.

[WhiteBlue]

I think the last (and only?) time MS had a truly uncompetitive cars was in 1996, when John Barnard had misunderstood the side-protection rules with the terrible F310, but he still drove the wheels of that dog to beat the Williams a cople of times!

I agree with the 1996 car being a dog on top of some pretty horrible unreliability. I remember sitting in Silverstone to enjoy the mighty Schumacher/Ferrari challenge for a grand total of seven laps at which distance both Ferraris had gone up in smoke.

In my view the 2005 car wasn't up to Schumacher standards either. It wasn't competitive due to the tyre rule changes which had caught out Ferrari badly. The tyres had no grip in qualifying and Michael often had to start in the mid field or he fell back when the Michelins were shining and the Bridgestones were falling apart. The 2005 season was all about tyres and suspension and Ferrari/Bridgestone messed up on both points. It took Ferrari three thirds of the season to Hungary to get their only pole position and that wasn't good enough to translate into a race victory. The only race victory was the farcial 2005 US GP which cannot do anything for the claim that the Ferrari was competitive. It helped to elevate Michael to a third place in the drivers standing with 62 points versus Montoya 60 and Fisichella 58. This trio by the way was roughly on half the points the number one Renault and McLaren drivers collected.

The 2005 Ferrari was horrible and only Schumacher's superior driver effort and Indygate masked that sad fact. I admire him more for his never failing attitude and his solidarity with the team in 2005 than for some of his crushing dominations in the years before. That year is also a good one to compare how Alonso stacks up against Schumacher in adverse conditions. If you remember Alonso's compliments about his 2008 and 2009 cars you will see a big difference in the way the driver does in an uncompetitive car. They both took bigger risks and extracted more from the car than there was in it, but Alonso never fails to point out where the team lets him down while Schumacher goes home, works harder with the engineers and never speaks a bad word about the team.

[Mr Alcatraz]

I think the last (and only?) time MS had a truly uncompetitive cars was in 1996, when John Barnard had misunderstood the side-protection rules with the terrible F310, but he still drove the wheels of that dog to beat the Williams a cople of times!

I agree with the 1996 car being a dog on top of some pretty horrible unreliability. I remember sitting in Silverstone to enjoy the mighty Schumacher/Ferrari challenge for a grand total of seven laps at which distance both Ferraris had gone up in smoke.

In my view the 2005 car wasn't up to Schumacher standards either. It wasn't competitive due to the tyre rule changes which had caught out Ferrari badly. The tyres had no grip in qualifying and Michael often had to start in the mid field or he fell back when the Michelins were shining and the Bridgestones were falling apart. The 2005 season was all about tyres and suspension and Ferrari/Bridgestone messed up on both points. It took Ferrari three thirds of the season to Hungary to get their only pole position and that wasn't good enough to translate into a race victory. The only race victory was the farcial 2005 US GP which cannot do anything for the claim that the Ferrari was competitive. It helped to elevate Michael to a third place in the drivers standing with 62 points versus Montoya 60 and Fisichella 58. This trio by the way was roughly on half the points the number one Renault and McLaren drivers collected.

The 2005 Ferrari was horrible and only Schumacher's superior driver effort and Indygate masked that sad fact. I admire him more for his never failing attitude and his solidarity with the team in 2005 than for some of his crushing dominations in the years before. That year is also a good one to compare how Alonso stacks up against Schumacher in adverse conditions. If you remember Alonso's compliments about his 2008 and 2009 cars you will see a big difference in the way the driver does in an uncompetitive car. They both took bigger risks and extracted more from the car than there was in it, but Alonso never fails to point out where the team lets him down while Schumacher goes home, works harder with the engineers and never speaks a bad word about the team.

+ that 3rd in the wdc would have been a fourth if Juan didn't get hurt!
Take away Indy and it would have been fifth!

[WhiteBlue]

As a footnote to the 1996 and 2005 season comparison I have checked the points, the number of races and the finishes outside the points.

MSC points: 1996-59; 2005-62
Races per season: 1996-16; 2005-19
Points per race: 1996-3,7; 2005-3,3
No point finishes: 1996-7; 2005-7

If we assume that Schumacher did not loose all his skills from 2004 (13 race wins out of 18 races) to 2005 (1 race win out of 18 races) we can only conclude that the 2005 car was even worse or equally bad as the 1996 car. A 35 year old driver is unlikely to loose his edge without any significant adverse circumstances in his life. In 2006 he had a more competitive car and the results were back to the typical level.

To put things into the 2009 perspective the closest 2009 points per race score to Schumacher's 2005 score had Lewis Hamilton with 2,9 points per race. I don't think that any Hamilton fan would call the 2009 McLaren a competitive car, neither was the 2005 Ferrari.

[jamsbong]

Whiteblue, you've made a very quantitative way to showcase the ability -> result of Schumacher. Just a note though... There are more points available in 2005 than 1996 i.e. the point systems are different. So may be Schumacher's skills had diminished, i donno.

I tend to think of the traction controlled (TC) F1 car era were very boring. I personally believed that TC overshadows the driver's ability and weakness. We end up seeing more great fast cars than driver's capability.

I don't think Hamilton is that bad. Remember, this kid is still young and potentially getting better and better.

[WhiteBlue]

Whiteblue, you've made a very quantitative way to showcase the ability -> result of Schumacher. Just a note though... There are more points available in 2005 than 1996 i.e. the point systems are different. So may be Schumacher's skills had diminished, i donno.

I don't think that the difference in the points system can unvalidate the analysis. The 2005 car was a dog just like the 1996 car. The initial issue was the assertion by xpensive that the 1996 car was the last one of Schumacher's cars that wasn't competitive. I think that it is obvious for an unbiased observer that the 2005 car wasn't competitive at all.

I tend to think of the traction controlled (TC) F1 car era were very boring. I personally believed that TC overshadows the driver's ability and weakness. We end up seeing more great fast cars than driver's capability.

A great driver has to be able to drive well with or without TC, with or without refueling. The basis for banning the TC was the standardized ECU which wasn't politically doable. Many people opposed it and said that it leads to a spec series. You cannot have your cake and eat it. It was the prize for banning TC and I like it that way.

I don't think Hamilton is that bad. Remember, this kid is still young and potentially getting better and better.

I'm not saying that Hamilton is bad. Quite contrary I believe that he has the potential to reach similar heights of success that Schumacher enjoyed if he keeps it up. I was only arguing that Hamilton's 2009 season results were overshadowed by an uncompetitive car during the first 10 races.

[marcush.]

To put things into the 2009 perspective the closest 2009 points per race score to Schumacher's 2005 score had Lewis Hamilton with 2,9 points per race. I don't think that any Hamilton fan would call the 2009 McLaren a competitive car, neither was the 2005 Ferrari.

the big difference was that Hamilton was able to grab polepositions and was more than an outside bet for race wins in the second half of 2009 .The car was actually good enough to make wins a possibility.
In 2005 Schumacher never ever would have won that race if not for Michelin having dominated all races but actually had a design flaw in their tyres in Indianapolis
so there was no opposition to Ferrari in that race.Quite a different situation to me.
2005 was simply triggered by the tyre war Michelin clearly defeating Bridgestone whereas 2009 was Macs having a fundamentally flawed car at the start of the season and MACS developing the car to be competitive again.....

to me this discussion is bound to be driver yingyang as if your hero does not deliver there is all excuses available always.I f he does ,presto :I told you so.

the only guy who actually did prove his point was MS .He blew away each and every
of his teammates over a season ,he clinched Championships 7 times ,he won a lot of races you thought he could not win ,and not in that thing...same goes for some race results when quite everything worked against him ,see his last GP so far...

[Flabbio Fixatore]

To put things into the 2009 perspective the closest 2009 points per race score to Schumacher's 2005 score had Lewis Hamilton with 2,9 points per race. I don't think that any Hamilton fan would call the 2009 McLaren a competitive car, neither was the 2005 Ferrari.

the big difference was that Hamilton was able to grab polepositions and was more than an outside bet for race wins in the second half of 2009 .The car was actually good enough to make wins a possibility.
In 2005 Schumacher never ever would have won that race if not for Michelin having dominated all races but actually had a design flaw in their tyres in Indianapolis
so there was no opposition to Ferrari in that race.Quite a different situation to me.
2005 was simply triggered by the tyre war Michelin clearly defeating Bridgestone whereas 2009 was Macs having a fundamentally flawed car at the start of the season and MACS developing the car to be competitive again.....

to me this discussion is bound to be driver yingyang as if your hero does not deliver there is all excuses available always.I f he does ,presto :I told you so.

the only guy who actually did prove his point was MS .He blew away each and every
of his teammates over a season ,he clinched Championships 7 times ,he won a lot of races you thought he could not win ,and not in that thing...same goes for some race results when quite everything worked against him ,see his last GP so far...

In my opinion, the change to the 3 sets of tyres/weekend was done to specifically handicap Ferrari after a dominant 2000-2004. I don't think the F2005 was as much crap as the 2005 Bridgestones were.

[WhiteBlue]

In my opinion, the change to the 3 sets of tyres/weekend was done to specifically handicap Ferrari after a dominant 2000-2004. I don't think the F2005 was as much crap as the 2005 Bridgestones were.

Does it really matter? If you ask the question why MSC wasn't competitive in 2005 the answer is not the driver. The answer is because the car wasn't , because the tyres weren't because the rules were made that way. In the end it is nitpicking and we reach the answer that was known all along before.

[gibells]

great. I'm really looking forward to even more fanboy ying yang for the next 12 months. As if 2009 wasn't bad enough.

[marcush.]

in effect the result is the same ,but still comparing apples and oranges is not a proper ways to derive meaningful conclusions,that was my point but of course we are already in the yingyang dept,unfortunatelly.

[nipo]

If you remember Alonso's compliments about his 2008 and 2009 cars you will see a big difference in the way the driver does in an uncompetitive car. They both took bigger risks and extracted more from the car than there was in it, but Alonso never fails to point out where the team lets him down while Schumacher goes home, works harder with the engineers and never speaks a bad word about the team.

Well said =D>

One of the biggest reasons I don't like Alonso. Especially now that he's joining Ferrari.

[WhiteBlue]

Next day to add to the calendar is 25. Januar at the Merc Museum in Stuttgart. Drivers will certainly be there for the launch of the livery and the car. Schumi back in silver after 19 years! First foto shoots with Britney and the Mercedes RB1.

[Richard]

First foto shoots with Britney and the Mercedes RB1.

Britney Spears?

[WhiteBlue]

First foto shoots with Britney and the Mercedes RB1.

Britney Spears?

Thats the journos nick name for Nico Rosberg. I kind of like it.

[DaveKillens]

great. I'm really looking forward to even more fanboy ying yang for the next 12 months. As if 2009 wasn't bad enough.

Oh yea, when Schumacher and Hamilton finally have some kind of incident, we will see a fanboy melee of epic proportions.