multi21

I found this 18 min. interview with Pat Symonds from last month and wanted to share it as I found it fascinating insofar as he revealed things that only someone on the inside would know in working with Schumacher, Senna and Alonso. Perhaps most interesting was when he said that the steering was broken in the collision with Damon Hill... I never knew that. I wouldn't' say Michael was flawed, but rather imperfect. Greatest F1 champion IMO.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/m...cgySTtMI3VUiGQ

Nizer

Cool video. Thanks for sharing.

Have to respectively disagree on Schumacher being greatest. That title goes to Senna IMO and I'm not alone on that among those on the inside.

JTT

Hey Multi21, is your new avatar a reference to Danny going from shoeys to driving a dog? Sorry, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

multi21

hahaha, that's a good one! I hope we see Ricciardo back on the podium, but the probability of that are very slim. I like to look at the bright side and look forward to him battling wheel to wheel in the midfield where there seems to be a lot of action as compared to the sharp end of the grid.

multi21

Thanks for sharing as well -- some incredible old footage and absolutely love the onboard shots!

Question: Don't you find it curious that MS doesn't have the pole position numbers that would correlate to his race wins and titles? Obviously the Benetton package was good, but not great, but during his Ferrari years, it's commonly thought of that the Ferrari was all conquering and the titles show that. Taking into account the different rule changes and qualifying periods during the 2000's when Ferrari was winning their titles, perhaps the Ferrari wasn't the fastest over 1 lap or 1 session. Symonds goes into detail how when other great drivers would start to fade in performance from mid race on, Schumacher still had stamina and performance in reserve. It's well documented that when others pitted, Brawn would come on the radio and tell Michael that they needed .3 per lap for X amount of laps and he would deliver to pass in the pitstops.

If I could ask Brawn just one question it would be "If you had such a perceived dominant car, why did you have to rely on passing in the pits when it would seem so much easier to out qualify everyone and run in clean air?" It's a mystery to me why Schumacher has such low pole numbers.

winders

Senna was certainly the greatest driver over one lap. But one lap does not win a race. Schumacher was clearly superior to Senna in race distance speed. Schumacher also was better in the rain than any of his contemporaries. When you factor in his ability to get the team around him to perform, he leapfrogs Senna as the best ever.

Manifold

What about Fangio?

RobertR1

Agreed. Schumacher also became the template of a modern F1 drive for conditioning which is something often overlooked.

Back when testing wasn't banned, I'd visit Ferrari F1 website and see that Schumacher is out at Fiorano day after day running hundreds of laps. It wasn't just natural ability. He simply outworked everyone else.

LuigiVampa

The BBC Five Live Chequered Flag Formula 1 podcast currently has a podcast about Michael Schumacher called "7 Days that changed Formula 1". It's basically about Schumacher's first race and is very interesting.

multi21

I've recently discovered F1 Podcasts "Beyond the Grid" in 2018. They're wonderful to listen to and under an hour so great for working out or when stuck in traffic. From Jackie Stewart to Charles Leclerc, there's something for every generation.
Anyway, to be inline with this thread, they had an hour long interview with Ross Brawn about Michael. Really interesting and again, beyond just sound bites that we normally hear.

There's little tidbits that only insiders would ever know like the revelation that when Michael retired for the first time, he got the bug and wanted to come back. According to Brawn, when Massa suffered the near fatal accident where the spring hit him in the helmet at Hungary, Ferrari asked Michael to come back and take his seat along side Kimi. Michael tested but couldn't make it work because he had suffered a bad motorcycle accident prior and hurt his neck so badly that he couldn't keep his head up with all the G forces. In the meantime, Brawn had been surprised when Jenson Button stated he was leaving Brawn at the end of the year. Seeing that Michael wanted back in, Brawn called Michael up and asked if he wanted to come to Mercedes the next year and that's how he ended up there. Were it not for the motorcycle accident, Michael would have surely been back at Ferrari.

LuigiVampa

Thumbs up for Beyond the Grid.

Manifold

A bit off-topic, but wanted to share this pretty good article I ran across:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/26/17499438/formula1-french-grand-prix-behind-the-scenes