If You Were Ross Brawn What Would You Do?

[BradSpeedMan 6]

I think Schumacher is doing a good job. As he said, he feels like he is rookie after being away for a 3 years. And as a rookie, he is doing pretty fine. He is clearly not comfortable with the car, sort of like 2005 when the Ferrari was a dog. I think he is doing as good a job that can be done, for someone of his age, and someone who has been away for 3 years. It is quite normal in my opinion. Give it till the middle of the season, and he will be very competitive compared to Nico

The simple fact is, he is not a rookie!!! He's a 7 times world champion who has returned. Was'nt he a consultant for Ferrari who looked after Massa and gave advice? Why is this not being mentioned? If we look at these factor's then maybe Insider might be spot on... he seems to have lost the ability to make the car suited for his driving style, same think Kimi was blamed for...

[Insider 0]

The simple fact is, he is not a rookie!!! He's a 7 times world champion who has returned. Was'nt he a consultant for Ferrari who looked after Massa and gave advice? Why is this not being mentioned? If we look at these factor's then maybe Insider might be spot on... he seems to have lost the ability to make the car suited for his driving style, same think Kimi was blamed for...

My agenda is not to 'dis' Schumi - he is the greatest F1 driver the World has ever seen. I simply want to identify the cause of his troubles. Are they car-related or in his head? The car is 'slow' by Brawn standards, there is no doubt. JB did well to try his fortunes elsewhere. Unfortunately, Rosberg is getting faster all the time and though MS was making progress in matching Nico's times in the first three races, China was abysmal - Michael was way out of it. I doubt he is anything but motivated but as Brad says, he's no 'rookie'. Using those words to describe how he currently feels, paints a picture of a disenchanted and confused man, if you ask me. Ross is scratching his head too. He knows this guy backwards and can't figure out what's going on though he probably has his suspicions. A new chassis won't give him back the undisputed 'edge' he had ten years ago and Ross probably knows that. Haug doesn't want to lose face with the volatile Daimler board. The honeymoon and sponsor-massaging is over and the blatant truth may be that this new breed of F1 racers are faster than MS can ever be again. You wouldn't expect Usain Bolt to be as rapid in five years time as he was last year would you? Schumi certainly has a role to play at MGP but I don't think it's the same one he had at Ferrari. Nico has his measure and intends to keep it like that. Michael needs to get his head around that or gracefully withdraw. I hope I'm wrong but I believe I may be right.

EDIT: Serious typos!

[maure 1]

I cannot be him since I'm simply not. "If I were" is an existential impossibility I don't feel like ignoring at this point.

Bar that, what he _will_ do or, rather, is doing follows a simple plan:

First, enjoy the hundreds of millions he stole from Honda.

Then, and only then, plan out his next swindle.

[JHS 1]

I have no doubt he wishes to succeed, his ego demands it but is his skill set up to the job. A lot of things have changed in F1 engineering, in the past three years. Is he capable of change too? Seems to me, a customised chassis is an expensive piece of pandering for someone who is clearly way outside his comfort zone, in a car Rosberg has adapted to quickly. Jenson was massively unhappy with the MP-25 in testing and at Bahrain but he's won two out of four in it. My point about Kubica was that if he was in a Hispania, he'd be wringing the neck off it. So would've Schumi ten years ago.

I see no reason why he doesn't have the ability to win again. As I say, you don't lose natural talent like that.

How do you know Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok arn't doing that? Just because the car is 5 or more seconds off the pace doesn't mean they are not trying. Oh sure, they unproven now compared to the likes of Kubica, but I find it silly that they wouldn't be pushing that car to the limit.

[Pucky the Whale 0]

Define:natural ability.

I'm not sure anyone can have "natural ability." It's just a term a lot of people (myself included) use to describe the aspects of a racing driver we fail to understand. It's hard to define what makes one driver have more "pace" than another; perhaps natural ability is just ability and ability is pace and pace is a combination of all the attributes of a racing driver we can identify (i.e. aggression, patience, etc).

In short, I don't think anything called "natural ability" really plays this massive role in a driver being successful. No one "has it" that much more than the others; the people who succeed are the ones who figure it out quickest. And they've all succeeded by making it to this level. Why they figure it out quickest? Well, that's what we call "natural ability," but if they all took to racing quickly, I just don't see how natural ability, whether it can be lost or not, is that important. You need it to get there, but you need a lot more to win.

Athletes always get worse with age; the age they start getting worse at does differ, of course. I'm sure many factors contribute to that. It's possible that Michael is going through the same thing; of course it's possible he's not and just needs more seat-time. It's just sad to see a champion out of his comfort zone and, rather than still be the same legendary driver he was, drive like a Heidfeld or any other generic brand points-scorer. The results are similar to those of Lewis last year when he was out of his comfort zone, yet the process to get to those results...there just was a lot more fight in Lewis.

I wonder, then, if Michael over-rated himself, just as many people here did. He may have expected too much; defending WCC, reuniting with Rossy and Merc, a teammate who he could so easily destroy, etc. Too good to be true. Perhaps he's just a bit disappointed that it's not been a dream comeback; not a bad one, but not a dream. I know he said early on he didn't expect to start winning right away, but as a competitor who has won so many times, I'm sure he was still hoping to win right away, and he wouldn't have come back if he didn't think that was possible. Perhaps any motivation issue he has is just a temporary bout with struggling to accept defeat and that this era, unlike the last one, is not going to be his.

[Jean Todt 4]

Define:natural ability.

I'm not sure anyone can have "natural ability." It's just a term a lot of people (myself included) use to describe the aspects of a racing driver we fail to understand. It's hard to define what makes one driver have more "pace" than another; perhaps natural ability is just ability and ability is pace and pace is a combination of all the attributes of a racing driver we can identify (i.e. aggression, patience, etc).

In short, I don't think anything called "natural ability" really plays this massive role in a driver being successful. No one "has it" that much more than the others; the people who succeed are the ones who figure it out quickest. And they've all succeeded by making it to this level. Why they figure it out quickest? Well, that's what we call "natural ability," but if they all took to racing quickly, I just don't see how natural ability, whether it can be lost or not, is that important. You need it to get there, but you need a lot more to win.

Athletes always get worse with age; the age they start getting worse at does differ, of course. I'm sure many factors contribute to that. It's possible that Michael is going through the same thing; of course it's possible he's not and just needs more seat-time. It's just sad to see a champion out of his comfort zone and, rather than still be the same legendary driver he was, drive like a Heidfeld or any other generic brand points-scorer. The results are similar to those of Lewis last year when he was out of his comfort zone, yet the process to get to those results...there just was a lot more fight in Lewis.

I wonder, then, if Michael over-rated himself, just as many people here did. He may have expected too much; defending WCC, reuniting with Rossy and Merc, a teammate who he could so easily destroy, etc. Too good to be true. Perhaps he's just a bit disappointed that it's not been a dream comeback; not a bad one, but not a dream. I know he said early on he didn't expect to start winning right away, but as a competitor who has won so many times, I'm sure he was still hoping to win right away, and he wouldn't have come back if he didn't think that was possible. Perhaps any motivation issue he has is just a temporary bout with struggling to accept defeat and that this era, unlike the last one, is not going to be his.

Makes sense...but that post is too good, considering that it was the work of ten monkeys with a typewritter.

[Pucky the Whale 0]

Makes sense...but that post is too good, considering that it was the work of ten monkeys with a typewritter.

Well, an eleventh monkey's been added to help out, and they've been working on their critical thinking and English skills by reading celebrities' Twitters.

[Rainmaster 7]

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2010/04/schumacher-gets-some-support-from-old-friends/

On Michael not being Michael:

"That said there is a rather worrying comparison with the old Schumacher. For my biography of him in 2007, Ross Brawn talked about his ability to drive around any problem or imbalance in a car,“One of the problems with Michael is that he has such great raw talent that he can drive around an imbalance. So you have to be careful with that because you can make a change and he will compensate for it very quickly. He might be doing similar lap times but it doesn’t throw the changes into focus so you can go the wrong way (on set up). There is never the disparity with Michael between a car which is perfect and one which is not so good, as you would get with other drivers.

“This is also a weakness because it makes the difference between a good car and an average car less discernible in testing and you can easily misread how competitive a car really is.”

Even his staunchest allies would agree that, at the moment, it is hard to reconcile those words with what we are seeing from the 41 year old version of Michael Schumacher. "

That is the difference I was talking about in another post somewhere.

[Autumnpuma 0]

Nobody is considering that MIkey never drove a car with this much understeer before. Even the dog of a Ferrari that he first sat his soon-to-be-golden butt into wasn't as prone to understeer as the current Merc is.

[Quiet One 15]

Mike, the issue is very well descript on Allen's article. For one side, to expect Michael to deliver since the first day was an excess of voluntarism. On the other hand, it is worrying to see that he looks like any other driver trying to adjust. To expect him to be in front since the start was expecting too much. To expect him to get used to a car just like any other driver makes him just ordinary.

I guess only time will tell exactly where he is at.

[Autumnpuma 0]

Mike, the issue is very well descript on Allen's article. For one side, to expect Michael to deliver since the first day was an excess of voluntarism. On the other hand, it is worrying to see that he looks like any other driver trying to adjust. To expect him to be in front since the start was expecting too much. To expect him to get used to a car just like any other driver makes him just ordinary.

I guess only time will tell exactly where he is at.

You're still reading that drivel? (That was my Cav impersonation...pretty good, eh? ) I read Allen's article and the last paragraph, where the Brawn quote came from, has no brilliant insight from Allen as to why Mikey isn't driving around this problem. He comes close when he blames the team, the tyres and Shanghai, but those don't quite satisfy.

I don't believe there's any difference, physically, in today's Mikey as opposed to the one a few years back. Your body doesn't forget how to drive an F1 car. I am confident that when Mikey gets the car's balance sorted, we'll see the magic again.

And if not, I don't have to face any of you in person.

[maure 1]

So if Alonso were as hungry as Kubica, he'd bring a full second to his team rather than his usual .600?

It was Dennis who came up with that 0.6 and he did so to hide imporvements in their car done with Ferrari's stolen info.

Alonso was not too sharp to repeat the 0.6 bit and, of course, the lewisterics and other bigots keep bringing it up... in order to hide the real issue, that is, McLaren cheated for seasons and no matter how much Ecclestone/Mosley tried to help them, eventually the other shoe dropped. So the bigots want to make themselves believe that Alonso is guilty of it all... without any luck whatsoever. Autumpumma makes the best case for Alonso is THE guilty one and his theory is one illogical statement after another... all to save Hamilton's arse. With motives like that, you are screwed. Hamilton has been turned into his own worst enemy and as it happened before, Ecclestone will have (some say already has) to let the kid go find a corner to cry.

Yep, oh yep, lewisterics are fcked... because, it is a fact that Alonso is the best there is on track... now that Kimi is gone, naturally.

[Autumnpuma 0]

It was Dennis who came up with that 0.6 and he did so to hide imporvements in their car done with Ferrari's stolen info.

Alonso was not too sharp to repeat the 0.6 bit and, of course, the lewisterics and other bigots keep bringing it up... in order to hide the real issue, that is, McLaren cheated for seasons and no matter how much Ecclestone/Mosley tried to help them, eventually the other shoe dropped. So the bigots want to make themselves believe that Alonso is guilty of it all... without any luck whatsoever. Autumpumma makes the best case for Alonso is THE guilty one and his theory is one illogical statement after another... all to save Hamilton's arse. With motives like that, you are screwed. Hamilton has been turned into his own worst enemy and as it happened before, Ecclestone will have (some say already has) to let the kid go find a corner to cry.

Yep, oh yep, lewisterics are fcked... because, it is a fact that Alonso is the best there is on track... now that Kimi is gone, naturally.

I'll dig up the thread and post a link here for anyone who is interested in reading it.

[maure 1]

Go for it. I feel like having fun.

[maure 1]

Correction.

Don't go for it. We both know what was said. Just dive in for the question or whatever you felt was unanswered.

In fact, you could start by answering mine. You claim that Alonso cheated because he was afraid of Hamilton and that he did so with the complicity of DLR because he hates Hamilton for taking his drive. The problem is simple. If that was so, how long were those two Spaniards cheating? Two weeks? Two months? Could've not been longer than that. Hamilton was a nobody until he publically accused McLaren of fixing races in Monaco. Even then, Hamilton was no more than a joke. Two races after Monaco, and both of them truly fixed (Canada and the US) had to pass before Hamilton was "anybody" and still, he simply wasn't. And in the British GP, where Hamilton naively confessed at the press conference that it was the first time he had setup his own car, his race was a disaster. So, again, when did Alonso became so frightened and how close to the speed of light did he cheat using stolen Ferrari's data to put together a separate development team to create a car faster than Hamilton's?

I'll give you the answer because is elementary. McLaren was stealing from Ferrari while Alonso was still in Renault, in other words, McLaren built a silver Ferrari while Alonso was still in Renault. Alonso arrived at McLaren and found a team up-side-down. A car they didn't understand well, stolen data begin fed directly to the pitwall during races, and to match the chaos, a teammate that need _at_least_ a year as third driver. At least. It turned out, later on, that Hamilton was the worst decission McLaren made, beyond cheating at all. Why? Simple, again. Hamilton would never stop screaming and his tennis dad was even worse. They kept calling attention to themselves and accusing McLaren of cheating. Ecclestone and Mosley did the impossible to spare McLaren but they did too much and Ferrari... well, there is the record.

The time frame you are trying to push is impossible, autumnpumma.

And, btw, if Hamilton knew nothing of it, how way out of the loop he was and how little his contribution to the team was... hold on, that's right, Alonso was hired to work as Hamilton's mechanic not as teammate...

[Insider 0]

Did you hear the one about the British F1 fan and German F1 fan who got together in a online forum chatroom?

Brit F1 Fan: Well, if I were Ross Brawn, what I would do is adjust the weight distribution on my cars.

German F1 Fan: Vat? You meen ze cars ze are kaput?

BF1F: In a word, yes old boy.

GF1F: Gott in Himmel! How is zat?

BF1F: They took their eye of the ball, old chap. Brawn got in a lather about Button leaving, Haug was walking round with a tent pole in his pants about Schumacher coming etc. and there you have it. Those beastly little front tyres blew them orf course, my sausage-eating friend.

GF1F: Mein Gott! Then zat is why Schumacher is not performing zen.

BF1F: I doubt it. Rosberg seems to be driving around the problem, what?

GF1F: But zat is zer Rot Baron's strength, no?

BF1F: Not anymore old boy, not anymore.

[maure 1]

Sure, bigot, sure, make fun of Germans' capacity to speak the English Language... in an _online_forum_ of all places. Boy, ain't you a dim-witted fellow?

How is your German by the way? Better be perfect native or you are fcked both ways.

[Insider 0]

Sure, bigot, sure, make fun of Germans' capacity to speak the English Language... in an _online_forum_ of all places. Boy, ain't you a dim-witted fellow?

How is your German by the way? Better be perfect native or you are fcked both ways.

Politically incorrect, perhaps. A small amount of harmless fun. That at least, was my intention but I could have expected you to attempt to make capital out of it with your twisted, warped mind. I do hope you are getting professional help with whatever it is that compels you to spew out such mindless crap.

[JHS 1]

Sure, bigot, sure, make fun of Germans' capacity to speak the English Language... in an _online_forum_ of all places. Boy, ain't you a dim-witted fellow?

How is your German by the way? Better be perfect native or you are fcked both ways.

Wow, it's got to a stage where we can't take harmless fun of other countries?

That's me out of this place then...

[maure 1]

Politically incorrect, perhaps. A small amount of harmless fun. That at least, was my intention but I could have expected you to attempt to make capital out of it with your twisted, warped mind. I do hope you are getting professional help with whatever it is that compels you to spew out such mindless crap.

Politically incorrect? How daft. You were btching about an _online_forum_, is it that difficult for you to grok?

Besides, I'm just laughing at you. I don't give a sht.

Wow, it's got to a stage where we can't take harmless fun of other countries?

That's me out of this place then...

What "other" countries? Which ones are the "others"? Freaking-christ _ALL_ countries are "other" countries to most everyone.

Are you and the other anserine fellow blood related?