c&cfan said:
I disagree pretty much with everything that you said, and that's bad for me. you are respected here and i am at the risk to be seen as another pistolero just because i am disagreeing with you
I'm trying not to be confrontational here, but you're making it hard for me.
shumi broke every record that there was to beat, with the difference that he "made" ferrari a great team, not the other way around.he dominated the competition because of his talent (difference between him and vettel\button). both prost and senna had the absolutely best cars, so they had to compete against each other, dividing the titles and wins between them, with senna being amazingly fast in order to get polls but prost being consistent. shumi was both.
You obviously won't have recalled Senna driving to three podiums in a TOLEMAN in 1984, a car his teammate failed to qualify to half the races. Prost and Senna were both two all time greats, it's no wonder they had to compete with one another. One was the cool, clever driver, one was the dynamic, aggressive driver. Schumacher certainly had elements of both, but he wasn't Prost+Senna combined, he was 0.5xProst + 0.5xSenna. A great driver, but it's impossible to say he was definitely better than them since at the time they had the best car, another all time great had the best car. At the time Schumacher had the best car... his teammate was contractually obliged to pull over and let him through.
what you said reminds me of another thing.
why people rate merckx gimondi and mr roubaix as the best ever? why can't they see that their competition was weak and that you can't compare palmares from the 60\70\80's to those of nowadays? to be the best, you have to be born in 1950? because it doesn't matter how good you are. you can't win roubaix and the tour anymore.
Yes, times have changed. They've changed in F1 too - but in those days cyclists had to be more jack of all trades. F1 drivers too - Graham Hill won the Indianapolis 500, the Le Mans 24 Hours and the F1 World Championship. The only man ever to achieve this feat. Three completely different aspects of motorsport, and he was the best at all three. Jim Clark is thought of as probably the most naturally gifted racing driver of all time - but he was killed by an accident in a meaningless F2 race. F1 drivers now don't have to do those races, and they don't have time to do races like Indy and Le Mans. The only F1 drivers to do those recently have been Montagny and Bourdais - backmarkers who are about to be replaced by paydrivers.
Schumacher wasn't all that outside of F1. As mentioned before, when he shared a Sauber C9 with Wendlinger and Frentzen in 1989-1990, he was the slowest of the 3. But what Schumacher WAS, was brilliantly tuned to F1, and very astute with who to surround himself with. He was also conniving - just read up on the illegal fuel rigs and the "Option 13" hidden traction control on the 1994 Benetton. Several rules have had to be changed because of his brilliant ability to spot loopholes (such as when he committed a drive-through penalty offence to keep the lead but as he knew he had 3 laps to serve it, finished the race in the pitlane serving the penalty), and the scoring system had to be changed because so many races were being manipulated by the guys with computers to get him ahead of Barrichello.
The guy was a brilliant driver, but far too much of his achievement was down to this conniving (not that Prost, Senna or Piquet were immune to this either) and manipulative behaviour that a lot of fans find themselves rating pure racers higher.
Again, it comes down to what I said before - he had a lot of ability, but like my oh-so-despised HTC-High Road, it was all about reducing everything to win percentages and minimising the risk of not winning (hence winning due to fast laps in clear air before pit stops rather than attacking on track) - no heart and soul.
in F1 it is even outrageous to put senna\prost\villeneuve as the best(beating shumi), when no one was fast enough to dominate the other, and saying that fangio and company had harder times because it was more dangerous. well, it also was dangerous to his opponents. with the exception of some eras where cars are the main reason to win (like redbull), competition in order to see who the best was, in F1, is "fair".
Why is it outrageous to say that the best came from an era when one didn't dominate?
If you have two 10/10 drivers, they will divide up the victories more than a 10/10 driver whose opponents are all 6/10 or below. A weaker driver than Schumacher could have dominated in Schumacher's era because the field he was driving against was weaker than those faced by Prost/Senna/Piquet/Mansell.
Put it this way - the F3000 champions of that era... Montoya '98 (went to US for 2 years before arriving in F1 to struggle), Heidfeld '99, Junqueira 2000 (never raced in F1), Wilson 2001 (cup of coffee with Minardi before disappearing), Bourdais 2002 (spent 5 years in the US before reaching F1, and struggled), Wirdheim 2003 (failed to reach F1 and failed in Champ Car too). The feeder series were failing to prepare talents for F1, so they were being plucked from further down, like Button and Räikkönen - but that meant they needed more time to adjust.
I am not hypocrite, so I am not going to say that that the trio you mentioned were average and the rest was bad, they were great. but season after season, only the best pilots were there, and only one pilot was able to dominate it's competition, beating pretty all records, with the right strategy, because this is about 0.1s, and like a god, he gave life to the dead, ferrari. his name is michael shumacher.
he was a bad person to his opponents, this is one reason for the fact that he is number 2 in that list. the other reason, as cold as it sounds, it's the kurt cobain's syndrome. he is seen as so cool, so awesome, not only because of his wins but also because he died like he did.
Talking Senna or Villeneuve here? Yes, certainly rose tinted spectacles look back on those that died young. And partly the way he treated his opponents (and the FANS, moreso - just look at Austria 2002) affect how Michael is seen, yes. But that's precisely WHY he's sometimes not seen as the best - because others had that natural ability, but didn't feel the need to cheat and lie and connive to win.
Basically, Schumacher was good enough that he would probably have won without the cheating and conniving. But he did it anyway. More people would accept him as the greatest had he won in more 'style'. It goes back to what I said before about the heart and soul of the sport. It isn't exciting to watch the same thing happen over and over again. When Schumacher had to race from deep in the field, it was exciting. But how many times did we see him just drive off into the distance, or Rubens have to pull over for him? That will always hurt him in fans' eyes.
you reminded me of mario andretti, who dislikes shumi so much that said: in my time we were competing against 15 shumis. that's why i only won 1 title.- he could use the same, but putting senna instead of shumi. what would you say about that?
if you think about it, the same reason can be applied to shumi's dominating years. the others weren't weak, he had bad lock before because his car was bad, but HE made the car better, no one did that before. the mclaren were already great, they were always great. then he used the weapon that was created thanks to him, and used his amazing driving skills (started wining races in a medium-class car in his second season if I am not mistaken, amazing maneuvers and results) to dominate the others. and, in cycling, were merckx did the same, you can say that he wasn't the best cycling ever, but you have to say that shumi is the best ever.
also:
there's a reason for ross brown needing him. it isn't because of his reflexes or driving skills (he is old) but because of his other side. the one that made ferrari the best car.
The McLaren of '93 was a terrible car with an underpowered customer engine. The McLarens of the mid-90s were rubbish. The McLarens of the late 90s were brilliant however.
Schumacher was one of the best of all time. Maybe even THE best. But it isn't black and white and it isn't CLEAR he's the best on anything other than a statistical basis - but much of his winning was purely padding statistics. It was like watching the Patriots keep Brady throwing to Moss when they're 30 points up in the 4th. And because of the dominating manner of his victories and his (lack of) personality, a lot of people were bored and turned off by his domination. I'm one of them.
So yes, you may love Schumacher. You may consider him the best ever, and you may have valid reasons for doing so. You may have thought watching the same driver win 80% of the races for 5 years was exciting. But don't project your views on to the entire F1 fanbase, because there are a lot of people out there who couldn't stand the man, a lot of people who got bored by F1 in the days where "the lights go out, they have a bit of a smash up on the first lap, then they have a parade for an hour and a half and Michael Schumacher wins", and a lot of people out there who rate other drivers higher. And who have valid reasons to do so.
EDIT:
Schumacher, just like Armstrong, was a domineering personality whose victories came often at the expense of suspense and tension. And just like Armstrong, he set out to crush his enemies, and did so with ruthless aggression. And just like Armstrong, he had no problem pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable to do so. And just like Armstrong, he polarises fans. Some are absolutely dedicated fanboys who will not hear a word that isn't even bad but simply not sycophantic about their hero, others are vitriolic haters who won't hear a good word about him.
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