Michael Schumacher
a) Championships
Actions: He went on to win five consecutive driver championships from the year 2000 to 2004, hence becoming a seven time world champion and the most dominant driver of this era. Not only that Schumacher took hold of almost all F1 records with the most number of poles, most number of wins, most number of points way ahead of the rest.
Repercussions: There were deservedly many comparisons of him with Fangio, Clark and Senna, but it as expected reaches a stalemate as they were all driving during different eras. He amassed a very large fan following, but faced lot of criticism because of his dominance apparently making the sport less thrilling to watch.
Presently: With 5 different drivers winning the subsequent 7 championships, things are looking good for the fans in competition front, but with Vettel’s decimation of the field this season, you never know.
b) Team Orders
Action: It reached its ugliest point with Schumacher in his Ferrari as explained earlier.
Repercussions: After facing heavy criticism from the journalists and fans alike, Schumacher allowed Barrichello to take the top step on the podium in Austria 2002, much to the dislike of the already angered crowd. Later in the season, he attempted a photo finish (with both cars crossing at exact same time) with Barrichello during the US GP, but with Barrichello ending up victorious, he was left embarrassed.
Presently: After the temporary ban on team orders, team orders are back but with proper policing being promised.
c) Retirement
Action: At the end of the 2006 F1 world championship, Michael hung his boots and decided to call it a day.
Repercussions: Many pundits called it the right time for him to do it as he had fought hard for the world championship that year (despite losing it to Alonso). This left many fans a tad disappointed a general decrease in F1 viewership due to decreased interest in F1.
Presently: Michael has been back for 2 years now, though he hasn’t set the tracks on fire, he is slowly regaining his touch and much can be expected the coming year. His return was generally well received from fans but many did criticize him as he was already into his 40s. Viewership has increased, but it’s perhaps more down to the rule changes than his return, but surely many of his former fans have embraced his resurgence.
Conclusion:
As we saw in almost all the impact notes, things are coming back to normal in most cases but there are some far reaching consequences too but to a smaller scale. The greatest of them all arguably being the reliability and the loss of some historic circuits. How the coming decade goes, will perhaps indicate the direction and strength of these changes.
Conclusion:
As we saw in almost all the impact notes, things are coming back to normal in most cases but there are some far reaching consequences too but to a smaller scale. The greatest of them all arguably being the reliability and the loss of some historic circuits. How the coming decade goes, will perhaps indicate the direction and strength of these changes.
5 comments:
Yes, he probably is arguably the biggest impact in the first half of the decade.
Wiht respect to you last commment, it would be great the oldest nurburgring, Hockenheimring and A1-ring back. Though I have not seen those tracks, I have heard a lot about the first and the last and it would be great to have teams drive there.
the old circuits you mentioned were great but i guess its not much use hoping, as they wont get back.
It will be interesting to see for how long Michael continues racing
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First, I never cheered for Schumi. In fact, I enjoy the interplay between teammates and teams of equal resources.
But when he was unceremoniously ousted from Ferrari I felt the same as when the released the 599 Scaglietti or their SUV, it was an unholy abomination, a thing no Ferrari should be. "Luca's Folly" will be ditching Schumi for Kimi. There is no way that Michael wouldn't have scored an 8th title in my opinion, and I highly doubt he would have waited for the last race to clinch it either.
Plus, we missed out on Schumi vs Hamilton, when they both were at their top of their game. And had Schumi scored that 8th title at Ferrari, I think he wouldn't be in the Merc and Di Resta would probably win in 2012 or 2013 for certain in the Silver Arrows machine.
That said, now that the Red Baron is back, I hope he sticks around for a bit as a points sapping thorn in the red teams campaign! I'd rather see him out there for a sunday drive than so many other drivers... Trulli, Glock, Luizzim Baricello, Heidi, De la Rosa, and so on...
Never been a fan of Schumi myself, but still his impact was big. For example in a country like mine, all would associate F1 with Schumi and Schumi alone. Ferrari werent too kind to Schumi in 2006, and then they handled Kimi so poorly. Hamilton vs Schumi in their primes would surely have been interesting LOL.
but Di Riesta being world champion will require some more convincing, lets see how he goes.
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