Michael Schumacher Retires - Again

Seven times world champion, Michael Schumacher as decided to retire from Formula One for a 2^nd time after reaching the end of his three year contract with Mercedes. Schumacher initially retired from Ferrari in 2006, but after three years away, he returned to Formula One in 2010 with Mercedes. Schumacher is regarded by some (mostly Germans) as the greatest driver of all time and this is backed up by statistics as he holds almost every record in the book: most championships, most wins, most podiums, most pole positions, most wins in a season, most consecutive wins, most fastest laps, the list goes on and on.

Schumacher started his F1 career with Jordan in 1991, and there was a lot of luck and chance that he got the drive in the first place. Jordan started the season with drivers Bertrand Gachot and Andrea de Cesaris, but needed a spare driver for the Belgian Grand Prix after Gachot was jailed for assaulting a London taxi driver. Schumacher was then given a test by Jordan at Silverstone, where he set amazingly quick times considering it was his first ever drive in an F1 car. After this, Eddie Jordan asked him if he had been round Spa before, to which he answered ‘yes’, but this would turn out to be a lie as Schumacher had never been to Spa before and the best he could do was cycle round the circuit before the weekend. Jordan later stated that if he knew that Schumacher had never been round Spa before then he wouldn’t have selected him, in which case history could have taken quite a turn. For that weekend, he qualified a team-best 7^th, however was quick enough for 3^rd on another lap until a mistake at the final chicane. In the race he retired on the first lap, but his qualifying performance was enough to draw attention, with Benetton signing him controversially for the next race onwards.

This was the start of Schumacher’s first phase of success, with a first win one year later at Spa, and then his first world championship in 1994 followed by another in 1995. He became the youngest double world champion and seemed destined to win more, but he also fancied a challenge. For the 1996 season onwards, he joined a Ferrari team who hadn’t been successful at all in recent years with their last championship coming in 1979. Together with Technical Director Ross Brawn and the rest of the team, they set about turning the team’s fortunes. In 1996, Schumacher won three races, more than Ferrari had won entirely from 1991 to 1995, however they weren’t quite championship contenders yet. 1997 onwards is when Ferrari could finally challenge for the title, but it eluded them throughout the rest of the 90’s thanks to Villeneuve and Hakkinen winning the titles for ’97, ’98 and ’99. The turn of the millennium marked the change in fortunes for Schumacher and Ferrari, taking the title in 2000, his first for five years and third in total; followed by the titles of 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. For a five year period, Schumacher was unstoppable, for example: 2002 he finished every race on the podium, and 2004 he won 12 of the first 13 races. 2005 finally brought Schumacher’s dominance to an end, with Renault’s Fernando Alonso winning the championship, and despite a hard fought battle, Schumacher again lost out to Alonso in 2006. This signalled the end of Schumacher’s Formula One career, with him retiring at the end of 2006.

Or so we thought. After Massa’s spring injury at Hungary, Schumacher was poised for a comeback with Ferrari to fill in for the injured Massa for the remainder of the season, but a neck injury sustained after a motorbike crash prevented him. This was a major disappointment after all the hype building up his return, and he clearly felt disappointed that he couldn’t race again, so Ross Brawn seized the opportunity and offered him a full drive at his newly branded Mercedes team for 2010 onwards: The comeback was back on. After a 3 year gap, Michael Schumacher was back, but not as we knew him. His reputation and all the build-up surrounding his return resulted in high expectation for him, but for most of the season he was easily beaten by younger team mate Nico Rosberg. 2011 didn’t fare much better for him, with only the Canadian Grand Prix looking like he might get a podium, but he didn’t. This was damaging for Schumacher. He was nowhere near the dominant racer that everyone knew, and all that had been achieved was raising questions about whether his previous championships had just been down to a dominant car. 2012 has been better so far, with Schumacher out-qualifying Rosberg in most of the races and even gaining a podium, and a would-be pole position had it not been for a grid penalty, but he has suffered a lot of mechanical faults, causing him to retire, and he has been making stupid mistakes, such as driving into the back of Senna and Vergne. These mistakes have been too common throughout his return, with him losing countless front wings, especially in 2011. His comeback has been nowhere near what he expected or what we expected at the beginning of 2010, as back then he was talking about challenging for wins and maybe even championships; instead he was barely even challenging for podiums, and too often challenging for a top 10 finish. It therefore comes as no surprise that he has decided to retire at the end of the season. He could have stayed on if he wanted to, with Sauber offering him a seat, and any ‘low’ team would want him just for the t-shirt and cap sales he would bring. But he has learnt from the mistake of his return to Formula One and decided not to damage his reputation further.

Many will remember Schumacher for his dominant winning ways, others maybe for his failed comeback, but there will also be too many people who will remember him for his darker side of racing. Throughout his career, controversy has been with him almost every step of the way. Even after his very first race, there was a lawsuit from Jordan GP over Benetton signing him. He won his first championship in terrible circumstances, by driving into fellow championship contender Damon Hill in the final race of the season, putting them both out, but meaning Schumacher won as Hill couldn’t finish and gain the necessary one point he needed. In the final race of the 1997 championship, Schumacher’s car broke, and as he was being overtaken by Villeneuve, drove into the side of him in an attempt to stop Villeneuve finishing just like in 1994 with Hill. Luckily justice prevailed, and Schumacher was disqualified from the championship. Then in 1998 at Spa after running into the back of David Coulthard, he stormed down the pit lane into the McLaren garage to fight Coulthard, but some McLaren mechanics blocked his way, before Coulthard could “unleash” his “ninja warrior style” on him. Even in his dominant days, there was controversy with Ferrari issuing team orders to team mate Rubens Barrichello at the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix to let Schumacher win; and upon his return in 2010, returned the favour to Barrichello by almost driving him into a concrete wall at 170mph. Back in 2006, he also tried to stop Alonso qualifying on pole at Monaco by stopping his car on track bringing out the red flag, but backfired as he was penalised and forced to start from the back. Throughout his career, it seemed Schumacher would do anything to win.

Despite the statistics, there are still many who don’t think he is a truly great driver. The Daily Mirror’s Byron Young states he wouldn’t have him in his top 10 drivers, pointing out that he has only ever won two races from starting outside the top three rows, and only six wins from outside the top two rows. With this there were never any legendary drives that Senna or Moss would make, just plain, boring leading from the front as he had the fastest car by a mile and the only equal, his team mates, weren’t allowed to compete with him. So it does seem Schumacher’s career has been mixed, earning as many enemies as fans, but there are two things which do seem certain: winning seven world titles is impressive, no matter what, but it would have been best for him to have stayed in retirement for the past three years.

 And as for what he could do next…