What If Schumi Stayed?

[Emmcee 0]

Taki Inoue was a little before my time, didn't he vote for himself as the worst f1 driver of all time?

Iam not sure but he was pretty bad, I was hearing rumors last yeah that Schumi might have headed to sauber, how do you think he would have done there? Do you think they pushed him to get lewis?

[Rainmaster 7]

As much as it's tempting to say he was overrated and only ever beat second rate drivers, etc, especially if you never liked him in the first instance, that explanation for me seems far too convenient. Convenient in the sense it sort of rewrites history given that Schumi fought many hard battles, won many great races and did so many great laps. It also goes completely against common sense and everything we ever heard or saw from Schumi's first career, all of which pointed towards him being a super strong driver, even if not a great one (if you were being harsh).

So you can come with many different explanations for his unimpressive comeback, other than that one, which seems so weak. I favour one in particular that I think Eric (Massa) already talked about, although I'd put it in a different way (a more vague way most likely ).

It would go something like this: when you are at the top level of something you get into a rhythm and a way of doing things. You know all the little moves that give you success. If you leave for long enough, it can be the case that when you start to do it again, you have to think about it. It no longer becomes as natural a process as it was. Thinking even for a split second puts you already at a big disadvantage. Why not take a look at Grosjean? Almost certainly a driver with a talent capable of beating Kimi, at least in terms of speed, yet he's thinking so much these days trying not to hit people he's generally nowhere. That's what thinking too much in an unnatural way can do.

I'm sort of speaking from experience here in the sense I sometimes play an FPS game online, against some pretty competitive (i.e. good) players. If I leave as I have done numerous times and don't play for a month, then come back to it, all of a sudden I'm nowhere near beating anybody whereas before I was competitive. Why is it the case? I still have all the experience and the skills; the problem is I'm thinking too much about how to use them. I know I'm making a mistake or about to make one and yet I still end up making the mistake, which is all the more frustrating. I have no rhythm and I'm always a step behind. I feel like that feeling I have is probably similar to the sort of feeling Schumi had.

Now, obviously after I play again for a little while, I'm eventually back up there. Just like Raikkonen was back up there when he returned. So what is it that makes the difference between being able to get into the rhythm again or not? In Schumi's case I would say age has to be the main variable. Even if the decay is only very small, again that is enough in a super competitive field and a team mate who is decent (and it looks like Rosberg has been a little underrated) to be behind. He just could not get into any kind of rhythm again, not on a regular basis. You can tell by some of his accidents and incidents he was thinking too much or shall we say, using too much of his brain power for driving. This from the guy who used to have more capacity when driving than anybody else.

So yep, age and time away are obviously the largest parts of it. That is staring us in the face and we have to accept it. Sorry for you old people Just remember, everybody's physiology is different. No doubt it's possible a driver over 40 could return after a break and be successful. But that wasn't Schumi.

[Quiet One 15]

Blah blah lots of legalese mumbo jumbo blah.

I disagree. Just like Massa and his head injury, Schumi's age seems like merely pointing at some random different factor and lay the blame on it without any further evidence. You might as well blame it on his motorcycle injuries (hey, why not?), or his hair color.

Again, the problem in Michael's return was not lack of speed. Was lack of spatial awareness, of judgement in overtaking and, above all, a very notorious lack of "the zone".

IMHO, he was not always this bad, just masked by a great car. Even accounting for the super package he had and was part of at Ferrari, he still was an amazingly skilful driver by himself. Not sure if a 7x WDC skilled driver, but certainly a 3x worth at least.

Fast forward to his second coming years: he was Ralf.

Only slower.

The slowness part I can accept it could be down to ageing, merely because it's possible, not because it is certainly so. Again, a 44 years old fit men with years of driving at the top might get a little soft in a couple of years, but not become crippled.

The problem with Michael is that for every little hint of his old great self, there were a billion other times when he was awful. I have no idea what happened to him but my personal favorite hypothesis is lack of motivation.

[Emmcee 0]

Rainmaster and quiet one, both exceptional theories couldn't agree more, I don't know if lack of motivation was the issue when he first came back as I think he was motivated but certainly wasn't at the end imo

[Rainmaster 7]

I disagree. Just like Massa and his head injury, Schumi's age seems like merely pointing at some random different factor and lay the blame on it without any further evidence. You might as well blame it on his motorcycle injuries (hey, why not?), or his hair color.

Again, the problem in Michael's return was not lack of speed. Was lack of spatial awareness, of judgement in overtaking and, above all, a very notorious lack of "the zone".

IMHO, he was not always this bad, just masked by a great car. Even accounting for the super package he had and was part of at Ferrari, he still was an amazingly skilful driver by himself. Not sure if a 7x WDC skilled driver, but certainly a 3x worth at least.

Fast forward to his second coming years: he was Ralf.

Only slower.

The slowness part I can accept it could be down to ageing, merely because it's possible, not because it is certainly so. Again, a 44 years old fit men with years of driving at the top might get a little soft in a couple of years, but not become crippled.

The problem with Michael is that for every little hint of his old great self, there were a billion other times when he was awful. I have no idea what happened to him but my personal favorite hypothesis is lack of motivation.

The "zone" is exactly what I'm talking about. That was his issue. Obviously quite a big issue considering it relates to every aspect of driving. The reason he was out of the zone was the break. The question is then why he couldn't get back into it.

I talked about age only because it is such an obvious factor, in the same way suffering a head injury like Massa would be an obvious factor in discussing his performance drop, because there is a well known link between head injuries and drops in performance in athletes. As a quick aside, I don't believe in Massa's case the injury was the cause but his problems were actually psychological, so I don't always go for the "obvious" factor. But you don't agree in Schumi's case that age is an obvious factor, you think it's random.

Okay, first of all there's a well established link between age and performance in most sport, and certainly F1. It's not a coincidence that drivers tend to retire at a certain age (before 40), otherwise these guys would all carry on doing the sport they love for as long as they could physically manage a GP distance. Clearly, a driver the age of 44 can do a GP distance. In fact, my own uneducated guess would be that a super fit man of 50 or perhaps more probably could and be reasonably competitive, if it were purely a question of physical fitness, by which I mean only strength and endurance. That was not Schumi's problem. I don't think fitness is the age related barrier.

I don't know what the barrier is, to be honest, but there is clearly some other non-fitness, but age related, biological barrier. Perhaps it is reactions, or the senses (most likely), or concentration, or something else. But since we already accepted that a person of 40+ can be more than fit enough to do a GP, you have to find some other age related reason why the age of retiring F1 drivers has the average it does (under 40). You might suggest a non-physiological reason and it's true, some drivers do get bored. Some have kids, or just want to move on, or are happy to go. But most of them? They love the sport so much they cling on for dear life and struggle to find a seat, perform poorly nowhere near their peak and leave after they should, and then go on to do slightly less demanding forms of motor-sport (and even most of those were not as old when they finally leave as Schumi was when he returned). So we need some other reason, a stronger explanation, to explain the numbers than non-physiological explanations, like families, other interests, etc. It must be a physiological reason. So I hope you'd accept that age generally isn't some random factor in performance in F1.

If you would accept age is not some random factor in performance, which I guess you must do in general (otherwise you'd believe a 90 year old could win some GP's), then I don't see why you'd dismiss it so quickly here. I do think age can affect things other than speed, and I don't see how that's contentious. Most drivers at the end of their career seem to get slower as well as more accident prone, that's quite normal I think. As for the fact he was only 3 years older and that isn't enough to make a difference? Well you only need to accept a Schumi of 3 years older is slightly worse in F1 terms than a Schumi of 3 years younger and you don't have to travel logically very far to get to understanding Schumi's bad results. That's because tiny differences biologically can cause small differences in performance, which can cause huge differences in results. Especially in a sport like F1. Or maybe you just favour an explanation that blames Schumi than one that to some extent exonerates him? Okay, that was a cheap one

That's why age is worth considering and I wouldn't dismiss it as readily as you, although if it sounds like I'm saying everybody over 40 is brain dead and crippled I could understand why you'd want to But that's not what I'm saying at all. Sorry if it appears like that. I'm a human being already past my mental peak (and what a glorious a peak it was) so I'd only be insulting myself.

Anyway, I don't think the reason he sucked was actually because of his age in itself. I think the reason he sucked was because he was away and couldn't get back into a groove. The reason he couldn't back to a groove is to me a slightly different issue though obviously still relevant, and more important for understanding his performance. Which is another way of saying, had Schumi not retired and still wanted to do F1, I don't find it difficult to conceive that he would have remained super competitive for the next 3 years, and maybe into this decade, despite being the "old" guy on the grid (so that would be my answer to the different question "what if he stayed in the first place"?). I just think it's possible, maybe even more likely than not, that his extra years played a significant part in his failure to adapt; I certainly can't dismiss it.

One thing we agree on if you're shopping around for candidate explanations is the motivation theory. I think that's also quite a strong theory in Schumi's case, since he seemed to come back because he was a bit bored and for the pleasure of driving, rather than a hunger to win. Kimi clearly is still extremely hungry (thirsty?) to win, so that works well. Obviously, a younger man is likely to have higher motivation, too (I'm just kidding, that's not a serious argument since my argument was limited to physiology in relation to age. Plus I would guess any lack of motivation on Schumi's part would be due to his past success more than anything else).

In all likelihood, it's a mixture of many factors. But his age is not some random one to be dismissed so easily just as Massa's head injury was not one to be dismissed so easily. Of course, in Massa's case we have evidence the injury was not the issue whereas in Schumi's case I will grant you, I cannot give you any sort of hard evidence specific to Schumi. I can only outline a relationship between the two concepts. I don't feel too bad about that since we're all just groping around in the dark here, rather than developing some thesis, but hopefully you can at least see it's not such an unreasonable speculation.

I'm never writing a post so long again. Sorry. TL;DR's expected!

[Quiet One 15]

Huh? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Care to type it all again for me?

I don't dismiss the age theory, as I don't dismiss the just made up moto injuries theory. I just don't see enough evidence to make it stand out among others. And I merely think that his age may affect his speed but not his driving skills. My main objection is that age should not have made him crash into everybody and Vergne. Unless somehow his physical abilities decayed at a very high rate unexpectedly because...I don't know, because everybody is not the same so some people age worse than others. But we have even less evidence of that.

Is age a theory? Yes. But I think motivation requires a lot less assumptions. Psychology has a very direct and noticeable effect on drivers. Again, Massa would be a good example on how much his performace can vary between worst of the worst and abysmal

Age affected him psychologically (as in "I'm too old for this Sh#t", when Merc couldn't deliver), but I see no signs of it affecting him physically.

And so, I basically said: "I agree with you"

[Emmcee 0]

It just seems weird because two of the key factors were at merc and were at Ferrari, and that's Schumi and brawn. Iam starting to think here, maybe merc wernt as forgiving as Ferrari as it seems Schumi needs the while team to win not 50/50 and vettel's performance would have rattles him a bit,the kid that looked up to him and idolised him is now beating him. The in season testing to it was Schumi is missing,maybe that's what he needed to actually build the car around him. ROC he is tuff to beat,he has beaten Vettel and seems like he can drive the wheels of anything,just watching his brief stint as the stig was hugely impressive, he new the limits of any car,straight of the bat. So this is what makes it even more of a mystery. But IMO after reading some good theories that sound real plausible, I'd have to go with the in season testing. I don't think he likes the simulator, he wants the real thing. Also I think keke was giving Michael and ear bashing and has done ever since Monaco 2006 and I'd assume he would be quite vocal over Rosberg beating him I would imagine.

[Angellica 0]

I think it took Schumacher quite a while to get back into the racing side of things once he came back, just as he was finally getting somewhere he was out and Hamilton was in. Did he jump or was he pushed? I'm not sure. All I do know is, Hamilton's performance against Rosberg's shows how good Rosberg is in that car and that Schumacher wasn't as slow as we maybe thought.

He had so much good luck on his side first time around, second time he seemed to get more than his share of bad luck. His multiple crashes did suggest it was time to call it a day though and he didn't do as well as he'd probably hoped to do. Would things have been different if he'd never left? Somehow I doubt it but we'll never know will we?

[Jean-Pierre 0]

He would have continued his dangerous driving and possibly caused accidents.

[Jem of the Shire 0]

I agree with the last 2 posts. I think Hamilton in 2013 is making Schumacher's 2010-2012 look a lot better than we thought. So Schu probably would still be a few tenths of Nico most of the time, but he was having too many incidents, so would've already crashed a few times by now.

In his heyday at Ferrari he used to blast qualifying-style lap times in between pitstops lap after lap, you can't do that any more because of these stupid tyres.

Someone earlier mentioned worst f1 driver of all time. I've only been watching since 1998, but in that period Yuji Ide is by far the worst. He was so bad he got booted out of the sport by the FIA! (correct me if that's not accurate)