Mr Schumacher is a great Formula One pilot. In most of this season’s races though, he’s looked decidedly average and his behaviour towards the other drivers has been somewhat erratic.
Some say he’s past it. He’s in an understeering car that was originally designed with Jenson Button in mind. The arguments will run and run.
What bothers me more is the incident during today’s Hungarian GP. In my opinion, it had a cloak of blackness about it and it wasn’t something you’d expect from someone of Michael’s pedigree.
Observing the incident from the front – all was clear. Michael had Rubens Barrichello in his right-hand mirror all the way down the finishing straight. His move to the right – almost planting Rubinho in the concrete – looked pretty deliberate to me. Good job there wasn’t a car exiting the pitlane.
No more of this please Michael. Take a long, hard look at the way you’re driving at the moment. Drivers and others who look up to you are watching.
CLIVE COULDWELL: Formula One as it is... 
Ok, was a bad move, but like he (Michael) said “As a pilot you can change your line anytime” he wasn´t give the position just like that, but if you can see this vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zENTLsV4d5M you will see that when Rubens tries to get back on track his move is even worse, he clearly tries to knock off Michael like in “Vengeance”. Then charges for who? Michael, Rubens or both?… Like your critics, i will follow you for now an then.
PD: ¡Sorry for my english, in from Venezuela!
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@Elazar
Firstly, your English is superb.
Look at your video at 1 minute 58 seconds. Rubens had two choices, turn to his left to stay on the track or be on the grass and crash. Michael was aware of this and aware that the pass was completed so moving far to his left to improve his line into turn 1 in hopes of either coming through ahead or being setup for re-passing into turn 2.
When Rubens committed to the right Michael needed to respect that. Instead he attempted to intimidate Rubens at 300KPH and set up a very dangerous situation. Closing the line when they were side by side made the possibility of contact very high.
Had they touched the likely outcome was that both cars would have been out of the race and the possibility of injury or even death of marshals, photographers, spectators or a driver was very real. I believe that this, rightly, was the reason the stewards awarded Michael a penalty in the next race.
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I take your point Matheus. There’s a lot of baggage between those two. I’m sure it will all come out in the wash when the books get published.
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“is a great Formula 1 pilot” or “was a great Formula 1 pilot”?
At his peak, the best of his time, without question. And he picked the perfect moment to leave: his reputation would have grown and been burnished with time.
But ego and boredom are destroyers of myth. This will not be the last we hear from M Schumacher’s dark side.
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