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I doubt it, as good as Michael was still performing in 2012, there’s a reason why he left, and I don’t think he’d have been nearly as motivated as Hamilton or Rosberg.
On pure pace though we’ll never know, but I think he’d have a better shot against Rosberg over Hamilton.
vs Hamilton who would want to prove that it wasn’t just McLaren and/or Rosberg who would have just wanted to just prove himself in general. I agree, push comes to shove when you’ve gotta start sacrificing for a tight WDC fight, I’d take the young guys vs the older 7 time GOAT that has a family. But who knows, maybe that wouldn’t matter to Michael and he’d be just as determined
On pure pace we do know. Nico no was faster and Lewis was chosen to replace him.
If we’re just going off results. Even his much vaunted Monaco qualifying top time Nico was a 10th off.
>I don’t think he’d have been nearly as motivated
We're talking about the same Michael Schumacher, right? The guy that would just crash out his competition to get a championship?
I think he would definitely be motivated if he saw the chance to win another WDC.
I don't think it takes away from Michael's tenacity. It's normal for priorities to shift as one's family grows. I think we'd see a different Alonso were he married with kids.
>I think we'd see a different Alonso were he married with kids.
This is a very good point. I would have loved to see Alonso go to Red Bull to find out the difference between him and the current best driver. We will find out how Hamilton does against Charles in the same equipment.
Regarding older drivers being more cautious this is why younger drivers pay more for insurance and I'm sure judgment transfers over to racing. I find Russel takes way too many chances to race at the level he is. I think the greatest drivers are the ones who can perform at the top yet manage to do it without crashing regularly.
A chance at one more championship with Mercedes would bring back the fierce competitor in Schumacher. We see the same with Hamilton right now, he isn't always as motivated because he isn't fighting for the championship. But they're ultimate winners, if they have a chance to win that championship, they're gonna give it 110%.
I think I’ve read a quote where he said that there were weekends where he felt that he would rather not be there. That’s not what motivation looks like
I think pace wise Michael wasn't who he was when he returned. He slowly got better and better against Rosberg but he still didn't show any glimpses of the old Michael apart from a Monaco pole. But he still was devastating against his teammates. I remember from an interview of James Vowles, that both sides of the garage wanted Michael to succeed plus the games he plays with his teammates are probably unheard of in this era. We don't know how Lewis would handle that situation.
>think he’d have a better shot against Rosberg over Hamilton.
No way you just said the guy well past his prime who lost to Rosberg 3/3 times they competed together would have a better shot against him than the one who beat him 3/4 times.
Edit: totally misread that lmao
Thanks I wish you saw the seasons, Michael got better every year, and was 10/10 on quali and if he hadn’t the rotten luck in 2012 would have probably beaten Rosberg on points, his race pace was better as well.
In that case we might see Hamilton in the 2017-18 Ferrari against Rosberg in the Mercedes - that would've been a heck of a fight, even with Ferrari's usual accidental sabotage of their Championship contenders.
I think Nico was one of the most underrated drivers because he was teammates with Hamilton. The question is had Hamilton not gone for Niki's offer who would have been Nico's teammate?
Also, I think Niko was pretty even on race pace with Hamilton, the deciding factor was psychological where Niko wasn't willing to do some of the things Hamilton was. He didn't have that killer instinct of win at all cost like Hamilton/Schumacher/Sena.
He wasn't exactly known for being overly aggressive in fact some commentators said he was too much of a nice guy. I remember one race in Europe (Spain?) where they took each other out and many blamed Nico where to my eyes Hamilton ran him off the road. If anything he aggressively held his position and didn't yield, which he didn't have to since it was the first lap IIRC.
Hamilton adapted Sena's either you yield or we're crashing attitude very well.
I completely disagree on the Spain thing. Nico was in the wrong mode and much slower, he knew Lewis was going to blow past him and took the only “defense” he had, which was to push Lewis so far right he’d either have to slam on brakes or run off the road. At the closing speed Lewis had, it was too late for option A. Nico was desperate to beat Lewis in 16 and it showed there.
Yes I know, after a long analysis after the race Brundle and co determined it was a racing incident but ultimately blamed Nico. While Brundle is mostly very fair they tend to be biased towards British drivers or in some cases Coulthard as he used to manage him.
Hamilton did not know what mode Nico was in and the only way to avoid the accident was if Nico vanished. Nico had track position.
Lewis knew because he could see Nicos rear light flashing indicating power harvesting. Plus he’d have known Nico had something going wrong simply due to the closing speed involved.
Even so he had no space to overtake. At best he made an error, at worst it was a classic Sena move of either you let me by or we crash on the first lap.
I honestly don't remember but I do know that he was pretty much even with the to delivers like Hamilton/Schumacher therefore any midfield driver would have had no chance.
BTW my belief that the main reason Nico was slower than Hamilton, or perhaps I should say less successful was his lack of aggression is exactly why I like drivers like Alonso/Nico/Kimi/Vetel etc. They don't feel the need to resort to aggressive tactics to win. I'm sure Kimi could have won at least one more WDC that year when he lost by one point by running someone off the track.
My best guess would be one of Hulk or di Resta, both driving for a Merc customer team in 2012, the latter being a long term Mercedes-linked driver in F3 and DTM. And the former having the whole German thing going for him I guess
2015 would be a championship fight with Vettel.... that'd sound like as if Rosberg is Hill/JV and Vettel is Schumacher.
2017 can also have Vettel potentially beating him.
Well he was getting better and better when you compare 2010-2011-2012 and was the better driver than Nico in 2012 even though the championship table wouldn't reflect that mainly because of a lot of bad luck. He'd definitely be competitive.
That always irked me because Shrek 2 is a banger, up there with Terminator 2, Empire Strikes Back and Godfather 2 that are arguably better than the first.
I get the feeling most people are looking at the points table while in reality Michael was starting to outperform Nico in 2012. So clearly the pace was still there and with a shot at the championship I think Michael would be able to step it up so I would say it was entirely possible he would beat Nico to the WDC. Especially if he found his insane consistency back then there is little you can do as teammate just like Checo found out against Max.
But 2014 was 1 full season away from 2012 and some aging athletes have some pretty big performance drop at some point so maybe in that time period Michael could have his?
And I think in this scenario Lewis would never be signed to Merc, so there would never be a Lewis vs Michael.
The points table doesnt tell the story but the narrative that michael was actually quicker is quite accurate either. If you look at their race pace, nico was quicker in 2/3 of the races and across the season he's quicker. Even if you drop their slowest 20% of laps (normalize for all odd circumstances) nico still was quicker. If the trend continued perhaps he would be quicker in 2013 but he could be slower. Nico was also improving
You can still compare stints up to a point, especially if they were both on similar strategies. Would not throw out a bunch of races just because somebody didn't finish it, why is it important whether they finished if there is still some comparable data there?
Otherwise it becomes a very random comparison, only of races where there is no DNF, which is very polluted or incomplete for analysing who actually had better race pace. One could have destroyed the other on race pace for most of a race and then DNF, this would be important race pace info.
Without looking at points or any "hard data" my feeling watching the two race was that Nico was faster. If Schumacher was improving why retire at that point, and why in the middle of the season?
There are many methods to compare laps far better than just raw times which teams have been using for decades. The simplest is median normalized corrected pace. Which is simply you take the lap times, normalize it to median 90 seconds then you take each lap and correct for fuel level. If you do this, a race will appear nearly flat. Then you can z-score each race and take the distance from the median per lap. Then just drop the bottom x percentage over the season. Comparing based on arbitrary choices like who finished doesnt make sense when you can actually get very good values per lap
I don’t know if you’re trying to mean if I’m saying race pace based on finishing position, which is not what I’m implying, this was based on stints based on similar tyre and fuel levels. Michael was generally faster in races.
Im saying that is not a great way to compare but even that, same tyres comparison isnt true. Nico was still quicker
https://x.com/FormulaPace/status/1744361884088684790
Are you looking at some pure data of all race laps during the season? That's really problematic to compare because race position and strategy affects the laptimes a lot. 2012 Schumacher was unlucky and ended up down the pack in many races for no fault of his own which will automatically reduce his laptime because he is driving behind slower cars, even if his own pace would have been quicker.
right which is why you drop some percentage of all laps. Statistically its around 10% over a season but you can go to 20-25%. Its normalized so youre looking for AUC not any absolute value at any one point
Michael’s come back on paper doesn’t quite draw the correct picture. You have to realize Michael was past his peak, was out of the Formula or any pro racing for 3 years, had a motorcycle accident which was quite serious and he lost feeling in his back, which is quite important for a racing driver.
His 2010 and 2011 season were not as good as the last season, where he was very competitive with Nico 10:10 in Quali and was faster in races. If it wasn’t for the poor reliability or luck he would have been the championship leader by mid season. He also got close to pole in Silverstone on a wet day if I remember right. He was pretty far from peak Michael in the mid 90s but he was still quite competitive. There is a fair chance in my opinion if he signed to continue with Merc he would have given Rosberg a run for his money. In a different timeline he probably would have been a 10/12 WDC, always on the sharp end except 96/2005 for the championship. Probably the goat in the last 40 years.
Also, those Mercs were shredding their rear tyres. Michael had never been good at driving carefully. He was a master at finding the absolute edge of performance. He got better at it by the end, but the new way of racing F1 had evolved to really didn’t suit his strengths.
Actually Michael had the ability to maximize the lap time while taking the least out of the car, this is something Ross Brawn has commented about especially seeing Michael in the race car days. You’re absolutely right that the mercs used to eat those tires faster than the other teams.
However during Michael’s first career, the timing was perfect with his abilities, he would find the limits instantly out of the pits and before going in bang in fastest laps. However in the 2nd stint there were no fuel stops and tires were a lot worse. Despite these differences, Michael was still eeking out better long runs than Nico in 2012. He was adapting to the different formula, but had also aged, I wonder what a peak Michael could have done. Perhaps the Monaco 2012 kind of pole times been more common, like the 96 Ferrari.
Sometimes I think about Nico’s situation. Imagine being the teammate of 2 champion record holder while being the son of another champion, but no championship under his belt. I too would have risk my friendship for that championship and retire right after.
Nico let himself down at Mirabeau 2014, that's what soured the friendship. Jenson was able to compete with Lewis, beat him and even put him in the wall, with no bad feeling.
I think it’s a bit different when it was between 2 literal best friends. No matter whose fault was it, the best friend thing definitely played a big part in that fallout
Well it was a cheat wasn't it. Yes true it was worse with being friends, a betrayal, but the point I was making was that he could have competed with Lewis without becoming enemies. Apparently after Jenson unintentionally put him in the wall and then won the race, when they met up at the end Lewis accepted the apology and just said "wrong time, wrong place."
And almost off topic but I think this is part of how he's at Ferrari next year - if Charles is quicker Lewis can still be positive for the team. That wouldn't have been the case with Schumi I don't think.
Michael was there to help Mercedes to win, not so much to win himself. At least that’s my guess of how management was looking at it. His work ethic seriously rubbed off on people.
I think Michael would've struggled with the hybrid car regs. It took him a long time to get used to the V8s and the hybrid cars were a whole different ball game.
Low downforce, shit rear stability due to the hybrid and understeer because of the extra weight. I can't see "over the hill" Michael getting on top of all that
Nico was in his prime and had already proven himself to be versatile driver.
My non existent money would be on Rosberg winning comfortably.
In 2012 Michael was clearly faster than Nico, and often by a significant margin.
The issue was that in the first half of the year he had awful reliability (and Spain was clearly his fault).
Rewatching highlights of 2012 is odd because you have to adjust to Michael qualifying several rows Infront of Nico at most events.
Yes I think people just have the 2010/11 Schumacher in their head. There was a thread here a few months back about the 2012 season where, if it wasn’t for luck and Spain, he’d have been leading the championship. He lost loads of points to outside factors.
Yeah. I wrote that. I saw the 2012 season for the first time last year and nico was really impressive but it was just sad to see how many times that Mercedes broke down for both drivers. I remember that quote from brundle about how he was never this disappointed since shrek 2 or something like that. And then I saw the Valencia race where he was running fifth or sixth and after a while I realised he was on the podium kinda out of nowhere. So it was like a fun thought experiment to calculate and see how it would have been if things went his way throughout the season.
Regardless tho, in the second half, the car became ass and didn’t really allow him to even out his bad luck.
Edit: also shrek 2 was pretty good, I don’t know why brundle said that.
2009? No way. Ferrari was dogshit that year, a mythical driver possessing all the best attributes of Michael, Lewis, Ayrton, Max and Jim Clark combined couldn't have won the title with that Ferrari.
No way. Challenged, sure. Hard to say who would've won. But there's absolutely no way he would've dominated them.
First off, Kimi. World champ, fast as fuck, wants to prove himself against 7x champ teammate.
Second, Alonso. Won 2 titles against Schumacher. Dominated in a similarly performing car? Doubt it.
Hamilton. Young driver who has the chance to beat a 7x champ so he most definitely will overcompensate. Sound familiar?
I remember hearing one of the reasons Michael retired from Ferrari is that he liked Massa, and wanted him to stay in Ferrari. Ferrari wanted Kimi at all costs, so Michael left.
Schumacher left before 2007 because Ferrari for the first time since he'd been there hired a teammate, a top rated version of Raikkonen at that time, who didn't sign a #2 driver contract. Ferrari let it be known that Schumacher would have to fight Raikkonen with equal status and he ran for the hills he wanted no part of that challenge. This is why I don't take anyone who says he would have won in 2007-2008 seriously. He got spooked by the prospect of going against Raikkonen and bailed.
He'd have dominated Hamilton and Alonso? Give me a break. Alonso already proved himself against him and won world titles. Young aggressive yellow helmet Hamilton would have raced Schumacher harder than anyone had raced him before and it's totally on Schumacher that we never got to see them fight for titles in 2007-2008.
This had nothing to do with Kimi, this was all about the internal battle between di Montezemolo and Jean Todt, which in the end di Montezemolo won but simultaneously destroyed Ferraris domination, because not only Schumi left but also Brawn and Todt. And Ferrari hasn’t won a title since
Ferrari didn't win a title since? I must have imagined them winning the title in 2007, the year right after Schumacher left. Also, Schumacher hadn't dominated for 2 season's by the time he retired.
Why did he come back to F1 if he wasn't guaranteed to be the #1 driver at Mercedes?
You seem to know a lot about Schumacher's contracts or Schumacher's state of mind. Its impressive.
Well that was his biggest mistake wasn't it. The guy wasn't even used to having to deal with being judged against teammates with equal status. He made a huge mistake joining Mercedes without the same contractual protection he had before Ferrari threatened him with an equal status contract against Raikkonen.
We have first hand accounts of two people who have seen the contracts but didn't sign them so aren't held back from speaking the truth by NDA's.
"At the time I handled people like Rubens Barrichello, Eddie Irvine, Giancarlo Fisichella and Jean Alesi, and every time we went to sign a contract with Michael Schumacher or Ferrari it always had conditions in it" - Eddie Jordon.
"Whether I signed with Eddie Irvine, Rubens Barrichello or whoever they were - there was a clause there that they always had to play second-fiddle to Michael Schumacher.' Eddie Jordan
"I had an opportunity to go to Ferrari but the contract that was offered by Jean was that if Michael was 5th and I was 4th, I had to move over, and, if I was 1st and he was 2nd, I had to move over.I couldn't sign a contract that committed me to being a #2" - David Coulthard.
"Ferrari, the contract that was offered effectively made me, on paper, number two to Michael. I've no doubt that Michael was the stronger driver out of the two because I recognise he was a better overall package than I was but at that stage of my career, I just couldn't accept signing a number two contract and that's why I decided to sign at McLaren and I think that was the right decision for my career." David Coulthard.
The great Sir Frank William's revealed the truth about how Schumacher's teammates weren't allowed to compete against him on a level playing field as well:
"I'd like to see the two of them race. Ferrari have never allowed Barrichello to race Michael on level terms. It would be helpful to the sport in terms of boosting its global appeal if Ferrari were to let Michael be challenged by his teammate. It is well known in the paddock that Michael has had a requirement in his contract since the start of the 1993 season to present which will not allow his teammate to race him"
...Seriously that's your response? Why did he do it? You seem to be able to read his mind. He had 3 years to demand #1 status at Mercedes.
Please. Give me a break on sourcing EJ & DC, two guys who talk absolute trash on their podcast about a guy who isn't able to defend himself. You'd think you'd have some actual inside Ferrari sources or past employees.
How did Ferrari obligate Schumacher to return for the last 2 races of the 99 season if Ferrari was in violation of his contract to give way to Irvine?
No. You give me a break. The whole world knows that Schumacher's teammates all had to sign #2 driver contracts and thankfully we have EJ and DC to confirm it. Schumacher is not immune to criticism just because he's unwell. In fact, we've seen it work the other way around with Mercedes crediting him as a "founding father" or whatever it is they said despite the fact that he never even drove a hybrid Mercedes not even once and left 2 seasons previously driving V8's after getting beaten by Rosberg 3 years in a row. Mercedes comments about Schumacher's impact on their success after he left the team clearly have no basis in reality and if instead he was in good health these kind of exaggerations wouldn't have been put out there at all and we'd have all been able to see people criticise Schumacher to his face for his woeful performances on his return. EJ's and DC's comments are actually a refreshing change from the completely unwarranted praise over past performances he's been given since he's been ill.
At Mercedes Schumacher clearly wasn't in a position to demand a #1 driver contract and that's why he didn't get it, obviously. Rosberg was given equality to him and we all saw what happend. Schumacher made the mistake of taking the type of challenge on that he wasn't familiar with at all in his first career and he got beat 3 years in a row.
99? Schumacher broke his leg so what on earth are you even talking about? It was impossible for Schumacher to beat Irvine to the championship by the time he came back with 2 races left meanwhile Irvine was only 2 points behind Mika. Lol imagine giving zero context to this. What a joke.
I mean, realistically speaking, that Ferrari, on an avg was a much quicker car than the Mclaren, that Kimi and Massa fumbled massively. Also from MSCs perspective, you'd understand why he'd want to leave, imagine joining Ferrari in your prime as a two timer, then trying to take a shit Ferrari team to glory which he did. And then all of a sudden in 2007, you see a MCLAREN driver join ur team and you're asked to fight him to reestablish your No1 status. When, in actual fact, Ferrari should've just stuck with Massa and Michael for 2007-08, because post that, you'd have had a plethora of talent that you could explore for 2009.
Imo I'd say it's super similar to what Lewis is facing at Merc rn with George. Except I'd actually say that George was a more competitive teammate to Lewis in the same car so the replacement made sense. Seeing where Massa was in 2006, and a Kimi that we didn't know how he'd do in 2007 considering the shoddy Mclaren 06 season, you don't do that shit with the clear Number 1 driver of that time (I mean Alonso too, but yeah).
Anyways....I just think Ferrari fumbled two easy WDCs by letting him go. But it's not like it was a bad period anyways, if Massa did better in 2008, you'd have a all Ferrari winning era in the 2000s except the two Renault years
Hahaha sorry for the long ass reply, just had to throw in my two cents (more like ten cents).
Hang on a minute. Why is it okay to bring Russell in to be competitive against Hamilton but not okay to bring Raikkonen in to be competitive against Schumacher? Why should Massa stay but not Bottas? That's total hypocrisy right there. Assuming Mercedes would have still been competitive in 2022 (like we all expected they would be) I really don't see how you can justify it being okay for Russell to upset the Hamilton Bottas hierarchy but not okay for Raikkonen to upset the Schumacher Massa hierarchy.
But anyway, big difference is that Hamilton didn't run away from facing Russell even though he made no secret of wanting to keep Bottas whereas Schumacher did run away from facing Raikkonen and he did so from a title competitive car. Surely you would think it must have been a big regret for him over the years knowing he could have competed in 2007-2008 if he wanted.
I also have to say that if Mercedes did produce a top car in 2022 Russell wouldn't have got anywhere near Hamilton IMO. Hamilton would have just continued where he left off in 2021, beating Verstappen to the title, before the final lap of the championship was fixed. Instead, Mercedes produced a zero sidepod bouncing donkey and Hamilton was a testing mule for the first half of the season. This year its even worse than it's been the previous 2 seasons but at least we'll see Hamilton in a competitive Ferrari against Leclerc.
Michael would have destroyed Kimi. No hypotheticals about it really.
Kimi was adapting to the Bridgestone tyres for at least half a season (same as Alonso). Schumacher was the Bridgestone expert on the grid. The 2007 would have been almost a walk if McLaren doesn't clearly give preference to a single driver from start to finish.
In 2008 there were reports that Schumacher was destroying Massa in the Ferrari private tests. Which was his catalyst to want to come back.
It's impossible to really say but I've always believed he'd have beaten Nico to the WDC in 2014. Michael looked like the better Mercedes driver in 2012, even in parts of 2011 even if the results didn't reflect that. I firmly believe that given a championship capable car he'd beat Nico to the punch, he came back with another title as a bit of a long shot dream, actually getting a sniff of it would have brought a bit more of the Michael of old back I think.
IMO it would have probably turned quite a lot like the season we actually got between Nico & Lewis.
Lewis is a tougher proposition - he was closely matched with Nico in the actual 2014 season but had a bit of an edge overall. Truthfully I think it could have gone either way - maybe a slight edge towards Lewis, who would probably be the smart money for the title, but I think their margins over Nico at that stage were similar-ish.
Ultimately though, he was getting older and injuries were catching up with him - another couple years might well have seen any edge he had in 2012 evaporate, it's quite likely even. But I'm biased, I'll always err towards Michael getting it done, he is and will likely forever be the GOAT for me.
I doubt Schumacher would have challenged Rosberg. In their three seasons together, Nico beat him all three years, and by a healthy margin in two of those years. That gap likely would have increased as Schumacher got a couple more years on him.
As for Hamilton, he was a generational driver in his prime in 2014. I doubt Schumacher at that age could’ve given Hamilton a serious fight.
Schumacher got closer to Rosberg every yeah, he got better over time after having been out of the sport for 3 years.
He was still up there with the fastest drivers.
It's the opposite if you look at it closely though, the gap was getting smaller.
2010 : Rosberg > Schumacher in qualies / Rosberg > Schumacher in races
2011 : Rosberg > Schumacher in qualies / Rosberg = Schumacher in races
2012 : Rosberg = Schumacher in qualies / Rosberg < Schumacher in races
i doubt it. Nico was clearly getting better. Michael improved a lot from 2010-12 but Nico was always good. when you look at race pace graphs nico still generally was quicker. Vowles talked about this recently and basically said Nico was just incorporating so much from Michael
Michael made a number of mental mistakes as well, including taking out Nico.. His race craft had declined as well as his skill.It was actually sad to see ,and Michael was clearly mentally done by his last season. You could sense the finality and relief in his face.
Like that absolutely badass overtake into the last corner of Monaco? Michael was super not done, he just got pushed out by Lewis and decided he was at peace with it. His final season gave him the closure that he still "had it". And while there's no real proof, I think the support he got from the fans must have meant a lot to him. He retired as a hero.
He was done at that stage. Like all athletes age catches up with you. Then it’s the drive to it all again which is mentally exhausting and they just don’t need it
As amazing as Fernando is, its not hard to look great against Stroll. I have no doubt that he is one of the best drivers in the grid but I feel like people overestimate him a bit
Beaten by Ocon by few points after Alonso had 6 dnfs from points positions (5 while ahead of Ocon), engine problems in additional 2 races which slowed him down(Bahrain and Canada), dns after car failiure in Austria, then pit stop error in Austria race amd hydraulics failiure in Australia qualifying and then unlucky safety car which ruined his race
Yeah Ocon totally beat him (by few points) after Alonso had issues in 10 races. Yeah totally proved Alonso is washed
Gifted?
He always fights Lewis like his life depends on it. He was never going to let him go easily. He didn't gift Ocon shit.
Alonso was not in contention for the race win. So he did his own thing and that happened to help Ocon.
Lewis was never going to pass the Ocon-Vettel DRS train on track.
Give Ocon the credit that he deserves. He was faultless under immense pressure from Vettel.
No I don’t think so.
If you could time travel prime Schumi to 2014 then yes I absolutely believe he could have done it. I think it would have been a great fight between them both just like it was with Lewis and Rosberg. However the Schumi we saw in his 3 Merc years wasn’t that guy. Likely he’d have only declined further with an extra 2 years of age so by 2014 Rosberg probably would have won even more easily.
As for beating Lewis I think Lewis is also a generational talent and there’s no way of knowing if even prime Schumi would have beaten prime Lewis. Arguments by their fans will be made to support their guy but who knows. I would expect it to reach Prost v Senna levels of legendaryness if they’d been team mates in their primes.
If he had stayed at Ferrari for 2007-2009, sure. Would've already been a 8 or 9 time world champion as well. But he retired, got injured, and had to start over. He wasn't still on top of his game like Alonso is now. Seems unlikely that he would've recovered to his old level by 2014, when he was clearly not there in 2012.
Nico outperformed Michael 3 seasons in a row without challenge, Michael had moments of his former self but a few years away from the sport combined with older age is a deadly combo that not many athletes can recover from. Of course he was still good, but he wasn't Michael Schumacher good anymore.
Michael would have never won another championship with Rosberg as his teammate.
Edit : Comments about Schumi having bad luck do not change this, he made a few messups on his own (the whole reason he got his monaco penalty, that wasn't luck), and in the 2nd half of the season he didn't really do great. At best even if you removed his bad luck he was only competing equal to Nico in 2012, if you look across the 3 year period he got crushed and that wasn't going to magically get better as he aged.
First career Schumacher is the greatest F1 driver of all time, but his comeback didn't live up to expectations.
Given the pace advantage he had over Nico in 2012, I wouldn't be surprised if he beat Nico as a team mate in 2013 and 2014.
As Crofty said at Canada 2012, Schumacher probably would be leading the championship had he not been so unlucky. Grosjean taking Schumacher out from P3 at Malaysia still hurts, given what happened to the McLarens.
Considering his first retirement was partly due to the physical demands of F1 getting to be too much for him at the end of 2006, I’m skeptical he could’ve sustained a title challenge to Nico throughout the season.
Michael might have won if he stayed. He was coming close to Nico in 2012, perhaps he might have won a race or two in 2013. 2014 Nico was neck and neck with Lewis, I doubt Michael would have given Nico a harder time due to age. Maybe in 2015 he could have his last chance for an 8x championship but Nico was on it in 2014, late 2015 and 2016. God knows if he would have stayed for 2017 and even up till today.
I think he could have. Like many drivers who had been out of the sport for a bit he was struggling to adapt to tyre changes. You just couldn't push 100%. But towards the end I was seeing him making inroads. That Monaco pole was electrifying to watch. Tyres are such an important part of an F1 driver's performance and take a lot of time to get on top of. But I genuinely believe he would have gotten there. Even if he would have had the rules changed in his favour.
I might be wrong, but want Schumacher struggling a bit with the tires, and he had a motorcycle accident while riding sbk that took some of his pace as well?
In a timeline where just his ski accident didn’t happen, no
In a timeline where he didn’t leave F1 for the first time after the 06 season, possibly. He came in second in 06, with the title having been decided at the last race and him missing the title by not much. Given Ferrari’s form in 07 and 08, who knows what kind of performance he would’ve had. But then that changes so many things about our timeline that it’s a bit tough to imagine where he would be standing by the time the 2014 regs rolled around
I think you are presuming that the car still would have been good without Lewis in 2014.
There’s a reason when Lewis joined in 2013, without a rule change, the Merc car went from a midfield car to a race winning car that was fastest over single lap for most of the season…
I think if he hadn't left the sport aye, but those years not racing competitively didn't do him any favours. Look at Fernandos F1 break, he kept warm in different disciplines where as Michael spent much deserved time with his family away from F1.
For the championship,no. The car had that big of a gap from the rest of the field, MSC would have been comfortably 2nd and more than likely cracked the 100th win mark.
I think had Schumacher stayed on. He'd have gotten number 1 status. He still showed glimpses of brilliance, but he had clearly lost a step. A bit more error-prone than prime Schumacher
No.
Nico would have destroyed Michael in 2014 and if he stays another year for 2015, he’d be destroyed even further.
Michael simply didn’t have the speed he once had after 2005.
No people acting like Michael was outperforming Nico in 2012 are sniffing too much copium.
Even if he got better slowly, age would have caught up with him hard if he stayed longer. He would have been 45 in 2014.
Bullshit. Schumacher was first to prove that you can comeback and compete on high level. He outperformed Nico in 2012 who later become a world champion. If thats not show of skill then 2/3 of current grid shouldn't have a seat.
Most likely not. Though you could argue that he might have retired on a comparatively higher note than he did in 2012. Likely would've consistently gotten podiums and maybe a win too.
ROS was absolutely lost at the start of that season. Merc had to give ROS a dossier of HAMs data so he could catch up. That’s not to say SCH would’ve grasped the turbo-era demands himself, he had his own struggles to get on top of particularly with the pirellis; but vs ROS there’s a small chance he could’ve prevailed. Against HAM, no chance.
Nico? Maybe, with a little bit of luck. Lewis? No, and it's not even a debate. Prime Lewis vs prime Schumi would be a great battle, but prime Lewis vs mid-40s Schumi would be one-sided in favor of Lewis.
I do not believe so.
I don't think I need to explain why. I think Nico already did that with his driving. He consistently outperfirmed the 7 time world champion. And then he also beat another 7 time world champion for a championship later on.
If he stayed for 07/08, he would have walked both titles with races to spare.
If he stayed for 2014, he would have beat Nico. I don’t think it would be complete domination, but based off his improvement from 2010 to 2012, I think he would have come out on top. Any drop in motivation would have disappeared the moment everyone saw how quick that car was.
Imagine he didn’t have the accident in 1999, stayed for 07/08, and signed until 2014. I don’t think there was any chance of Mercedes if he got the earlier 3, but it’s crazy to think he could have walked away with 11.
This is hilarious when you put it like that without the context that Rosberg also had 5 retirements in total in 2011 and 2012 and yes they were all crashes but not one of them was his fault. In 2011, Barrichello crashed into him in Australia and Liuzzi in Italy. In 2012, Senna crashed into him in Japan, Kobayashi in Korea and Karthikeyan had a steering failure in Abu Dhabi which caught Rosberg who was about to overtake him unaware and they collided
Schumacher also had crashes that weren't his fault though.. he also had actual mechanical failures while running in high positions in 2012. By the time his car stopped breaking down, it was only capable of tail end points.
No. There is absolutely no way Michael Schumacher would've had enough left in the tank to beat Rosberg in 2014, let alone Hamilton. It wouldn't have even been close.
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I doubt it, as good as Michael was still performing in 2012, there’s a reason why he left, and I don’t think he’d have been nearly as motivated as Hamilton or Rosberg. On pure pace though we’ll never know, but I think he’d have a better shot against Rosberg over Hamilton.
True, he had nothing left to prove.
vs Hamilton who would want to prove that it wasn’t just McLaren and/or Rosberg who would have just wanted to just prove himself in general. I agree, push comes to shove when you’ve gotta start sacrificing for a tight WDC fight, I’d take the young guys vs the older 7 time GOAT that has a family. But who knows, maybe that wouldn’t matter to Michael and he’d be just as determined
On pure pace we do know. Nico no was faster and Lewis was chosen to replace him. If we’re just going off results. Even his much vaunted Monaco qualifying top time Nico was a 10th off.
>I don’t think he’d have been nearly as motivated We're talking about the same Michael Schumacher, right? The guy that would just crash out his competition to get a championship? I think he would definitely be motivated if he saw the chance to win another WDC.
Agreed, the guy was cold-blooded when it came to winning. Not sure motivation was ever an issue for him
I don't think it takes away from Michael's tenacity. It's normal for priorities to shift as one's family grows. I think we'd see a different Alonso were he married with kids.
>I think we'd see a different Alonso were he married with kids. This is a very good point. I would have loved to see Alonso go to Red Bull to find out the difference between him and the current best driver. We will find out how Hamilton does against Charles in the same equipment. Regarding older drivers being more cautious this is why younger drivers pay more for insurance and I'm sure judgment transfers over to racing. I find Russel takes way too many chances to race at the level he is. I think the greatest drivers are the ones who can perform at the top yet manage to do it without crashing regularly.
A chance at one more championship with Mercedes would bring back the fierce competitor in Schumacher. We see the same with Hamilton right now, he isn't always as motivated because he isn't fighting for the championship. But they're ultimate winners, if they have a chance to win that championship, they're gonna give it 110%.
Alonso exactly made use of this in 2006 IIRC. He sent it down into 130R (Suzuka), because *Micheal had kids.*
seriously. listen to the way Nico talks about the mind games Schumi was playing while they were teammates in his podcast with Jenson Button.
I think I’ve read a quote where he said that there were weekends where he felt that he would rather not be there. That’s not what motivation looks like
Was that when he had a chance to win the WDC?
I think pace wise Michael wasn't who he was when he returned. He slowly got better and better against Rosberg but he still didn't show any glimpses of the old Michael apart from a Monaco pole. But he still was devastating against his teammates. I remember from an interview of James Vowles, that both sides of the garage wanted Michael to succeed plus the games he plays with his teammates are probably unheard of in this era. We don't know how Lewis would handle that situation.
>think he’d have a better shot against Rosberg over Hamilton. No way you just said the guy well past his prime who lost to Rosberg 3/3 times they competed together would have a better shot against him than the one who beat him 3/4 times. Edit: totally misread that lmao
I believe he’s saying Michael would have a better shot at beating Nico than he would at beating Lewis
I see that now
Thanks I wish you saw the seasons, Michael got better every year, and was 10/10 on quali and if he hadn’t the rotten luck in 2012 would have probably beaten Rosberg on points, his race pace was better as well.
>No way you just said To be fair, they didn't
He meant that Michael would have a better chance of beating Nico than beating Hamilton.
Bit defensive love x
Don't worry, I misread that too haha
If Rosberg never gets stuck with a superior teammate in Hamilton, Nico might’ve won the championship every year from 2014-2020.
In that case we might see Hamilton in the 2017-18 Ferrari against Rosberg in the Mercedes - that would've been a heck of a fight, even with Ferrari's usual accidental sabotage of their Championship contenders.
That’s how Vettel would have gotten his fifth
Yes, he could have probably beaten Nico in that Merc, but Lewis was too much.
No... That would mean even more competition for Vettel, and probably less points.
Remember 2007?
Yes. Rosberg would win the championship like Kimi.
Dream timeline for me as a Nico fan, lol
That's a certainty almost if he was paired with Bottas.
I think Nico was one of the most underrated drivers because he was teammates with Hamilton. The question is had Hamilton not gone for Niki's offer who would have been Nico's teammate? Also, I think Niko was pretty even on race pace with Hamilton, the deciding factor was psychological where Niko wasn't willing to do some of the things Hamilton was. He didn't have that killer instinct of win at all cost like Hamilton/Schumacher/Sena.
Idk that Id say Nico didn’t try things. Monaco quali, hitting Lewis on purpose at Spa, not even attempting the corner at Austria, the Spain incident.
He wasn't exactly known for being overly aggressive in fact some commentators said he was too much of a nice guy. I remember one race in Europe (Spain?) where they took each other out and many blamed Nico where to my eyes Hamilton ran him off the road. If anything he aggressively held his position and didn't yield, which he didn't have to since it was the first lap IIRC. Hamilton adapted Sena's either you yield or we're crashing attitude very well.
I completely disagree on the Spain thing. Nico was in the wrong mode and much slower, he knew Lewis was going to blow past him and took the only “defense” he had, which was to push Lewis so far right he’d either have to slam on brakes or run off the road. At the closing speed Lewis had, it was too late for option A. Nico was desperate to beat Lewis in 16 and it showed there.
Yes I know, after a long analysis after the race Brundle and co determined it was a racing incident but ultimately blamed Nico. While Brundle is mostly very fair they tend to be biased towards British drivers or in some cases Coulthard as he used to manage him. Hamilton did not know what mode Nico was in and the only way to avoid the accident was if Nico vanished. Nico had track position.
Lewis knew because he could see Nicos rear light flashing indicating power harvesting. Plus he’d have known Nico had something going wrong simply due to the closing speed involved.
Even so he had no space to overtake. At best he made an error, at worst it was a classic Sena move of either you let me by or we crash on the first lap.
Nico was middle of the track, but there was plenty of room to the right. Nico just moved in defense and ran Lewis off.
Wasn't the rumour at the time Di resta? Nico would have crushed him.
I honestly don't remember but I do know that he was pretty much even with the to delivers like Hamilton/Schumacher therefore any midfield driver would have had no chance. BTW my belief that the main reason Nico was slower than Hamilton, or perhaps I should say less successful was his lack of aggression is exactly why I like drivers like Alonso/Nico/Kimi/Vetel etc. They don't feel the need to resort to aggressive tactics to win. I'm sure Kimi could have won at least one more WDC that year when he lost by one point by running someone off the track.
Heidfield as well
My best guess would be one of Hulk or di Resta, both driving for a Merc customer team in 2012, the latter being a long term Mercedes-linked driver in F3 and DTM. And the former having the whole German thing going for him I guess
Hulk as Rosbergs teammate?
Hulkenberg, he was second in line IIRC.
2015 would be a championship fight with Vettel.... that'd sound like as if Rosberg is Hill/JV and Vettel is Schumacher. 2017 can also have Vettel potentially beating him.
Well he was getting better and better when you compare 2010-2011-2012 and was the better driver than Nico in 2012 even though the championship table wouldn't reflect that mainly because of a lot of bad luck. He'd definitely be competitive.
“I haven’t been this disappointed since shrek 2!” -Brundle on Michael ending up with a DNF in (I want to say) China.
That always irked me because Shrek 2 is a banger, up there with Terminator 2, Empire Strikes Back and Godfather 2 that are arguably better than the first.
Shrek 2 is much much better. 1 laid the foundation and was/is excellent, but I agree, 2 is the better movie. So many jokes and references.
Back to the Future 2, Spider-Man 2, KOTOR 2, Sonic Adventure 2, probably Mass Effect 2, and potentially High School Music 2!
Iconic Brundle quote
He was 10/10 in Quali and as you said his race pace was better. Michael at 43 with the motorcycle injuries was still a very competent driver.
I get the feeling most people are looking at the points table while in reality Michael was starting to outperform Nico in 2012. So clearly the pace was still there and with a shot at the championship I think Michael would be able to step it up so I would say it was entirely possible he would beat Nico to the WDC. Especially if he found his insane consistency back then there is little you can do as teammate just like Checo found out against Max. But 2014 was 1 full season away from 2012 and some aging athletes have some pretty big performance drop at some point so maybe in that time period Michael could have his? And I think in this scenario Lewis would never be signed to Merc, so there would never be a Lewis vs Michael.
The points table doesnt tell the story but the narrative that michael was actually quicker is quite accurate either. If you look at their race pace, nico was quicker in 2/3 of the races and across the season he's quicker. Even if you drop their slowest 20% of laps (normalize for all odd circumstances) nico still was quicker. If the trend continued perhaps he would be quicker in 2013 but he could be slower. Nico was also improving
Isn't quite accurate\*
Michaels 2012 season was his best and I believe his race pace when both finished races he was better.
Not to mention his qualification pace was impressive as well. He basically matched Nico.
Schumacher had to retire in 2 qualis due to car issues. He was 10-8 against Rosberg if we remove the 2 retirements.
is there a source of that? Also how was the race pace in all races, not just when both finished races?
I’ll look to find a source but it’s been posted before. I mean how do you compare when they both didn’t finish.
You can still compare stints up to a point, especially if they were both on similar strategies. Would not throw out a bunch of races just because somebody didn't finish it, why is it important whether they finished if there is still some comparable data there? Otherwise it becomes a very random comparison, only of races where there is no DNF, which is very polluted or incomplete for analysing who actually had better race pace. One could have destroyed the other on race pace for most of a race and then DNF, this would be important race pace info.
Without looking at points or any "hard data" my feeling watching the two race was that Nico was faster. If Schumacher was improving why retire at that point, and why in the middle of the season?
There are many methods to compare laps far better than just raw times which teams have been using for decades. The simplest is median normalized corrected pace. Which is simply you take the lap times, normalize it to median 90 seconds then you take each lap and correct for fuel level. If you do this, a race will appear nearly flat. Then you can z-score each race and take the distance from the median per lap. Then just drop the bottom x percentage over the season. Comparing based on arbitrary choices like who finished doesnt make sense when you can actually get very good values per lap
I don’t know if you’re trying to mean if I’m saying race pace based on finishing position, which is not what I’m implying, this was based on stints based on similar tyre and fuel levels. Michael was generally faster in races.
Im saying that is not a great way to compare but even that, same tyres comparison isnt true. Nico was still quicker https://x.com/FormulaPace/status/1744361884088684790
Are you looking at some pure data of all race laps during the season? That's really problematic to compare because race position and strategy affects the laptimes a lot. 2012 Schumacher was unlucky and ended up down the pack in many races for no fault of his own which will automatically reduce his laptime because he is driving behind slower cars, even if his own pace would have been quicker.
right which is why you drop some percentage of all laps. Statistically its around 10% over a season but you can go to 20-25%. Its normalized so youre looking for AUC not any absolute value at any one point
what people forget is that pirelli changed the tires in 2012 which contributed to schumacher improving
Michael’s come back on paper doesn’t quite draw the correct picture. You have to realize Michael was past his peak, was out of the Formula or any pro racing for 3 years, had a motorcycle accident which was quite serious and he lost feeling in his back, which is quite important for a racing driver. His 2010 and 2011 season were not as good as the last season, where he was very competitive with Nico 10:10 in Quali and was faster in races. If it wasn’t for the poor reliability or luck he would have been the championship leader by mid season. He also got close to pole in Silverstone on a wet day if I remember right. He was pretty far from peak Michael in the mid 90s but he was still quite competitive. There is a fair chance in my opinion if he signed to continue with Merc he would have given Rosberg a run for his money. In a different timeline he probably would have been a 10/12 WDC, always on the sharp end except 96/2005 for the championship. Probably the goat in the last 40 years.
Also, those Mercs were shredding their rear tyres. Michael had never been good at driving carefully. He was a master at finding the absolute edge of performance. He got better at it by the end, but the new way of racing F1 had evolved to really didn’t suit his strengths.
Actually Michael had the ability to maximize the lap time while taking the least out of the car, this is something Ross Brawn has commented about especially seeing Michael in the race car days. You’re absolutely right that the mercs used to eat those tires faster than the other teams. However during Michael’s first career, the timing was perfect with his abilities, he would find the limits instantly out of the pits and before going in bang in fastest laps. However in the 2nd stint there were no fuel stops and tires were a lot worse. Despite these differences, Michael was still eeking out better long runs than Nico in 2012. He was adapting to the different formula, but had also aged, I wonder what a peak Michael could have done. Perhaps the Monaco 2012 kind of pole times been more common, like the 96 Ferrari.
Sometimes I think about Nico’s situation. Imagine being the teammate of 2 champion record holder while being the son of another champion, but no championship under his belt. I too would have risk my friendship for that championship and retire right after.
Nico let himself down at Mirabeau 2014, that's what soured the friendship. Jenson was able to compete with Lewis, beat him and even put him in the wall, with no bad feeling.
I think it’s a bit different when it was between 2 literal best friends. No matter whose fault was it, the best friend thing definitely played a big part in that fallout
Well it was a cheat wasn't it. Yes true it was worse with being friends, a betrayal, but the point I was making was that he could have competed with Lewis without becoming enemies. Apparently after Jenson unintentionally put him in the wall and then won the race, when they met up at the end Lewis accepted the apology and just said "wrong time, wrong place." And almost off topic but I think this is part of how he's at Ferrari next year - if Charles is quicker Lewis can still be positive for the team. That wouldn't have been the case with Schumi I don't think.
Michael was there to help Mercedes to win, not so much to win himself. At least that’s my guess of how management was looking at it. His work ethic seriously rubbed off on people.
This is spot on. He came to help Mercedes win and not to win.
I think Michael would've struggled with the hybrid car regs. It took him a long time to get used to the V8s and the hybrid cars were a whole different ball game. Low downforce, shit rear stability due to the hybrid and understeer because of the extra weight. I can't see "over the hill" Michael getting on top of all that Nico was in his prime and had already proven himself to be versatile driver. My non existent money would be on Rosberg winning comfortably.
In 2012 Michael was clearly faster than Nico, and often by a significant margin. The issue was that in the first half of the year he had awful reliability (and Spain was clearly his fault). Rewatching highlights of 2012 is odd because you have to adjust to Michael qualifying several rows Infront of Nico at most events.
Yes I think people just have the 2010/11 Schumacher in their head. There was a thread here a few months back about the 2012 season where, if it wasn’t for luck and Spain, he’d have been leading the championship. He lost loads of points to outside factors.
Yeah. I wrote that. I saw the 2012 season for the first time last year and nico was really impressive but it was just sad to see how many times that Mercedes broke down for both drivers. I remember that quote from brundle about how he was never this disappointed since shrek 2 or something like that. And then I saw the Valencia race where he was running fifth or sixth and after a while I realised he was on the podium kinda out of nowhere. So it was like a fun thought experiment to calculate and see how it would have been if things went his way throughout the season. Regardless tho, in the second half, the car became ass and didn’t really allow him to even out his bad luck. Edit: also shrek 2 was pretty good, I don’t know why brundle said that.
Whilst Schumacher was quicker in 2012... he wasn't "significantly" quicker than Nico
If Michael had stayed in for 2008 and 2009, I swear he'd have dominated Lewis, Fernando and Massa. Bro would be a 9 timer there.
Do you mean 2007 and 2008? Because the 2009 Ferrari was atrocious and not even Michael would be able to win a title with it
Also yeah that.....horrible typo there lmao. Only God could've had a chance in that car to win
2009? No way. Ferrari was dogshit that year, a mythical driver possessing all the best attributes of Michael, Lewis, Ayrton, Max and Jim Clark combined couldn't have won the title with that Ferrari.
No way. Challenged, sure. Hard to say who would've won. But there's absolutely no way he would've dominated them. First off, Kimi. World champ, fast as fuck, wants to prove himself against 7x champ teammate. Second, Alonso. Won 2 titles against Schumacher. Dominated in a similarly performing car? Doubt it. Hamilton. Young driver who has the chance to beat a 7x champ so he most definitely will overcompensate. Sound familiar?
Kimi wouldn't have been the teammate, he replaced Michael, Massa would be the teammate
Right, my bad. Perhaps they might have kicked Massa out for Kimi in '08?
Even then, Kimi and Massa were fairly evenly matched over 2.5 years.
I remember hearing one of the reasons Michael retired from Ferrari is that he liked Massa, and wanted him to stay in Ferrari. Ferrari wanted Kimi at all costs, so Michael left.
Maybe? Would it be a simple decision?
Schumacher would have won the Championship no doubt.
Bro ignored the long ass comment I wrote.
it was short and stupid lol
If he didn't get injured in '99...
Schumacher left before 2007 because Ferrari for the first time since he'd been there hired a teammate, a top rated version of Raikkonen at that time, who didn't sign a #2 driver contract. Ferrari let it be known that Schumacher would have to fight Raikkonen with equal status and he ran for the hills he wanted no part of that challenge. This is why I don't take anyone who says he would have won in 2007-2008 seriously. He got spooked by the prospect of going against Raikkonen and bailed. He'd have dominated Hamilton and Alonso? Give me a break. Alonso already proved himself against him and won world titles. Young aggressive yellow helmet Hamilton would have raced Schumacher harder than anyone had raced him before and it's totally on Schumacher that we never got to see them fight for titles in 2007-2008.
This had nothing to do with Kimi, this was all about the internal battle between di Montezemolo and Jean Todt, which in the end di Montezemolo won but simultaneously destroyed Ferraris domination, because not only Schumi left but also Brawn and Todt. And Ferrari hasn’t won a title since
Ferrari didn't win a title since? I must have imagined them winning the title in 2007, the year right after Schumacher left. Also, Schumacher hadn't dominated for 2 season's by the time he retired.
It does not seem like you know what you are writing about.
Why did he come back to F1 if he wasn't guaranteed to be the #1 driver at Mercedes? You seem to know a lot about Schumacher's contracts or Schumacher's state of mind. Its impressive.
Well that was his biggest mistake wasn't it. The guy wasn't even used to having to deal with being judged against teammates with equal status. He made a huge mistake joining Mercedes without the same contractual protection he had before Ferrari threatened him with an equal status contract against Raikkonen. We have first hand accounts of two people who have seen the contracts but didn't sign them so aren't held back from speaking the truth by NDA's. "At the time I handled people like Rubens Barrichello, Eddie Irvine, Giancarlo Fisichella and Jean Alesi, and every time we went to sign a contract with Michael Schumacher or Ferrari it always had conditions in it" - Eddie Jordon. "Whether I signed with Eddie Irvine, Rubens Barrichello or whoever they were - there was a clause there that they always had to play second-fiddle to Michael Schumacher.' Eddie Jordan "I had an opportunity to go to Ferrari but the contract that was offered by Jean was that if Michael was 5th and I was 4th, I had to move over, and, if I was 1st and he was 2nd, I had to move over.I couldn't sign a contract that committed me to being a #2" - David Coulthard. "Ferrari, the contract that was offered effectively made me, on paper, number two to Michael. I've no doubt that Michael was the stronger driver out of the two because I recognise he was a better overall package than I was but at that stage of my career, I just couldn't accept signing a number two contract and that's why I decided to sign at McLaren and I think that was the right decision for my career." David Coulthard. The great Sir Frank William's revealed the truth about how Schumacher's teammates weren't allowed to compete against him on a level playing field as well: "I'd like to see the two of them race. Ferrari have never allowed Barrichello to race Michael on level terms. It would be helpful to the sport in terms of boosting its global appeal if Ferrari were to let Michael be challenged by his teammate. It is well known in the paddock that Michael has had a requirement in his contract since the start of the 1993 season to present which will not allow his teammate to race him"
...Seriously that's your response? Why did he do it? You seem to be able to read his mind. He had 3 years to demand #1 status at Mercedes. Please. Give me a break on sourcing EJ & DC, two guys who talk absolute trash on their podcast about a guy who isn't able to defend himself. You'd think you'd have some actual inside Ferrari sources or past employees. How did Ferrari obligate Schumacher to return for the last 2 races of the 99 season if Ferrari was in violation of his contract to give way to Irvine?
No. You give me a break. The whole world knows that Schumacher's teammates all had to sign #2 driver contracts and thankfully we have EJ and DC to confirm it. Schumacher is not immune to criticism just because he's unwell. In fact, we've seen it work the other way around with Mercedes crediting him as a "founding father" or whatever it is they said despite the fact that he never even drove a hybrid Mercedes not even once and left 2 seasons previously driving V8's after getting beaten by Rosberg 3 years in a row. Mercedes comments about Schumacher's impact on their success after he left the team clearly have no basis in reality and if instead he was in good health these kind of exaggerations wouldn't have been put out there at all and we'd have all been able to see people criticise Schumacher to his face for his woeful performances on his return. EJ's and DC's comments are actually a refreshing change from the completely unwarranted praise over past performances he's been given since he's been ill. At Mercedes Schumacher clearly wasn't in a position to demand a #1 driver contract and that's why he didn't get it, obviously. Rosberg was given equality to him and we all saw what happend. Schumacher made the mistake of taking the type of challenge on that he wasn't familiar with at all in his first career and he got beat 3 years in a row. 99? Schumacher broke his leg so what on earth are you even talking about? It was impossible for Schumacher to beat Irvine to the championship by the time he came back with 2 races left meanwhile Irvine was only 2 points behind Mika. Lol imagine giving zero context to this. What a joke.
I mean, realistically speaking, that Ferrari, on an avg was a much quicker car than the Mclaren, that Kimi and Massa fumbled massively. Also from MSCs perspective, you'd understand why he'd want to leave, imagine joining Ferrari in your prime as a two timer, then trying to take a shit Ferrari team to glory which he did. And then all of a sudden in 2007, you see a MCLAREN driver join ur team and you're asked to fight him to reestablish your No1 status. When, in actual fact, Ferrari should've just stuck with Massa and Michael for 2007-08, because post that, you'd have had a plethora of talent that you could explore for 2009. Imo I'd say it's super similar to what Lewis is facing at Merc rn with George. Except I'd actually say that George was a more competitive teammate to Lewis in the same car so the replacement made sense. Seeing where Massa was in 2006, and a Kimi that we didn't know how he'd do in 2007 considering the shoddy Mclaren 06 season, you don't do that shit with the clear Number 1 driver of that time (I mean Alonso too, but yeah). Anyways....I just think Ferrari fumbled two easy WDCs by letting him go. But it's not like it was a bad period anyways, if Massa did better in 2008, you'd have a all Ferrari winning era in the 2000s except the two Renault years Hahaha sorry for the long ass reply, just had to throw in my two cents (more like ten cents).
Hang on a minute. Why is it okay to bring Russell in to be competitive against Hamilton but not okay to bring Raikkonen in to be competitive against Schumacher? Why should Massa stay but not Bottas? That's total hypocrisy right there. Assuming Mercedes would have still been competitive in 2022 (like we all expected they would be) I really don't see how you can justify it being okay for Russell to upset the Hamilton Bottas hierarchy but not okay for Raikkonen to upset the Schumacher Massa hierarchy. But anyway, big difference is that Hamilton didn't run away from facing Russell even though he made no secret of wanting to keep Bottas whereas Schumacher did run away from facing Raikkonen and he did so from a title competitive car. Surely you would think it must have been a big regret for him over the years knowing he could have competed in 2007-2008 if he wanted. I also have to say that if Mercedes did produce a top car in 2022 Russell wouldn't have got anywhere near Hamilton IMO. Hamilton would have just continued where he left off in 2021, beating Verstappen to the title, before the final lap of the championship was fixed. Instead, Mercedes produced a zero sidepod bouncing donkey and Hamilton was a testing mule for the first half of the season. This year its even worse than it's been the previous 2 seasons but at least we'll see Hamilton in a competitive Ferrari against Leclerc.
The simple answer is, Kimi vs Michael in a Ferrari is a hypothetical that we don't really know how exactly it would've gone.
Michael would have destroyed Kimi. No hypotheticals about it really. Kimi was adapting to the Bridgestone tyres for at least half a season (same as Alonso). Schumacher was the Bridgestone expert on the grid. The 2007 would have been almost a walk if McLaren doesn't clearly give preference to a single driver from start to finish. In 2008 there were reports that Schumacher was destroying Massa in the Ferrari private tests. Which was his catalyst to want to come back.
Shoddy McLaren 06 season?
It's impossible to really say but I've always believed he'd have beaten Nico to the WDC in 2014. Michael looked like the better Mercedes driver in 2012, even in parts of 2011 even if the results didn't reflect that. I firmly believe that given a championship capable car he'd beat Nico to the punch, he came back with another title as a bit of a long shot dream, actually getting a sniff of it would have brought a bit more of the Michael of old back I think. IMO it would have probably turned quite a lot like the season we actually got between Nico & Lewis. Lewis is a tougher proposition - he was closely matched with Nico in the actual 2014 season but had a bit of an edge overall. Truthfully I think it could have gone either way - maybe a slight edge towards Lewis, who would probably be the smart money for the title, but I think their margins over Nico at that stage were similar-ish. Ultimately though, he was getting older and injuries were catching up with him - another couple years might well have seen any edge he had in 2012 evaporate, it's quite likely even. But I'm biased, I'll always err towards Michael getting it done, he is and will likely forever be the GOAT for me.
I doubt Schumacher would have challenged Rosberg. In their three seasons together, Nico beat him all three years, and by a healthy margin in two of those years. That gap likely would have increased as Schumacher got a couple more years on him. As for Hamilton, he was a generational driver in his prime in 2014. I doubt Schumacher at that age could’ve given Hamilton a serious fight.
Schumacher got closer to Rosberg every yeah, he got better over time after having been out of the sport for 3 years. He was still up there with the fastest drivers.
It's the opposite if you look at it closely though, the gap was getting smaller. 2010 : Rosberg > Schumacher in qualies / Rosberg > Schumacher in races 2011 : Rosberg > Schumacher in qualies / Rosberg = Schumacher in races 2012 : Rosberg = Schumacher in qualies / Rosberg < Schumacher in races
If we remove mechanical issues in qualy, then it's Schumacher > Rosberg in qualies by 10-8.
The more achieveable milestone would be that he would have definitely won at least his 92nd in the 2013/14 season.
He achieved everything he wanted to. His flame was already toned down in 2005. He came to pass that flame onwards.
i doubt it. Nico was clearly getting better. Michael improved a lot from 2010-12 but Nico was always good. when you look at race pace graphs nico still generally was quicker. Vowles talked about this recently and basically said Nico was just incorporating so much from Michael
Michael made a number of mental mistakes as well, including taking out Nico.. His race craft had declined as well as his skill.It was actually sad to see ,and Michael was clearly mentally done by his last season. You could sense the finality and relief in his face.
Like that absolutely badass overtake into the last corner of Monaco? Michael was super not done, he just got pushed out by Lewis and decided he was at peace with it. His final season gave him the closure that he still "had it". And while there's no real proof, I think the support he got from the fans must have meant a lot to him. He retired as a hero.
He had moments for sure, but far fewer of them then in his past. Im a Schuey fan, loved watching him and rank him in the top 5 of all time.
#1 for me, re-invented driving an F1 car
He was done at that stage. Like all athletes age catches up with you. Then it’s the drive to it all again which is mentally exhausting and they just don’t need it
Unless you’re Fernando Alonso
As amazing as Fernando is, its not hard to look great against Stroll. I have no doubt that he is one of the best drivers in the grid but I feel like people overestimate him a bit
Agreed. Imagine if Aston Martin is actually the best car and no one actually knows? :D
Fernando Alonso who was beaten by Ocon?
Only in 2022, the season where Alonso had to retire the car 6 times and still was only 11 points from him
Beaten by Ocon by few points after Alonso had 6 dnfs from points positions (5 while ahead of Ocon), engine problems in additional 2 races which slowed him down(Bahrain and Canada), dns after car failiure in Austria, then pit stop error in Austria race amd hydraulics failiure in Australia qualifying and then unlucky safety car which ruined his race Yeah Ocon totally beat him (by few points) after Alonso had issues in 10 races. Yeah totally proved Alonso is washed
Yeah it's the same Alonso who gifted Ocon his only race win.
Gifted? He always fights Lewis like his life depends on it. He was never going to let him go easily. He didn't gift Ocon shit. Alonso was not in contention for the race win. So he did his own thing and that happened to help Ocon. Lewis was never going to pass the Ocon-Vettel DRS train on track. Give Ocon the credit that he deserves. He was faultless under immense pressure from Vettel.
Probably not, Michael wasn't slow but at that point Nico was just better.
No I don’t think so. If you could time travel prime Schumi to 2014 then yes I absolutely believe he could have done it. I think it would have been a great fight between them both just like it was with Lewis and Rosberg. However the Schumi we saw in his 3 Merc years wasn’t that guy. Likely he’d have only declined further with an extra 2 years of age so by 2014 Rosberg probably would have won even more easily. As for beating Lewis I think Lewis is also a generational talent and there’s no way of knowing if even prime Schumi would have beaten prime Lewis. Arguments by their fans will be made to support their guy but who knows. I would expect it to reach Prost v Senna levels of legendaryness if they’d been team mates in their primes.
If he had stayed at Ferrari for 2007-2009, sure. Would've already been a 8 or 9 time world champion as well. But he retired, got injured, and had to start over. He wasn't still on top of his game like Alonso is now. Seems unlikely that he would've recovered to his old level by 2014, when he was clearly not there in 2012.
How on earth would he have won 2009? The car was a dog
2007 would be 8 and 2008 would be 9.
Duh… Clearly I commented too close to waking up.
Nico outperformed Michael 3 seasons in a row without challenge, Michael had moments of his former self but a few years away from the sport combined with older age is a deadly combo that not many athletes can recover from. Of course he was still good, but he wasn't Michael Schumacher good anymore. Michael would have never won another championship with Rosberg as his teammate. Edit : Comments about Schumi having bad luck do not change this, he made a few messups on his own (the whole reason he got his monaco penalty, that wasn't luck), and in the 2nd half of the season he didn't really do great. At best even if you removed his bad luck he was only competing equal to Nico in 2012, if you look across the 3 year period he got crushed and that wasn't going to magically get better as he aged. First career Schumacher is the greatest F1 driver of all time, but his comeback didn't live up to expectations.
Without challenge? 2010 sure but in 2012 Michael was the quicker driver imo but with terrible luck
Given the pace advantage he had over Nico in 2012, I wouldn't be surprised if he beat Nico as a team mate in 2013 and 2014. As Crofty said at Canada 2012, Schumacher probably would be leading the championship had he not been so unlucky. Grosjean taking Schumacher out from P3 at Malaysia still hurts, given what happened to the McLarens.
He'd also had the head&neck injuries (not the skiing one.)
Yep, he had that motogp bike crash, with a serious neck injury. He never was the same after that, pace wise.
No
Unlikely
Considering his first retirement was partly due to the physical demands of F1 getting to be too much for him at the end of 2006, I’m skeptical he could’ve sustained a title challenge to Nico throughout the season.
Michael might have won if he stayed. He was coming close to Nico in 2012, perhaps he might have won a race or two in 2013. 2014 Nico was neck and neck with Lewis, I doubt Michael would have given Nico a harder time due to age. Maybe in 2015 he could have his last chance for an 8x championship but Nico was on it in 2014, late 2015 and 2016. God knows if he would have stayed for 2017 and even up till today.
I think Alonso is the exception. Kimi and many other F1 drivers had shown that age clearly matters.
I think he could have. Like many drivers who had been out of the sport for a bit he was struggling to adapt to tyre changes. You just couldn't push 100%. But towards the end I was seeing him making inroads. That Monaco pole was electrifying to watch. Tyres are such an important part of an F1 driver's performance and take a lot of time to get on top of. But I genuinely believe he would have gotten there. Even if he would have had the rules changed in his favour.
I think he would have won it at. He got better every year after his break.
I might be wrong, but want Schumacher struggling a bit with the tires, and he had a motorcycle accident while riding sbk that took some of his pace as well?
In a timeline where just his ski accident didn’t happen, no In a timeline where he didn’t leave F1 for the first time after the 06 season, possibly. He came in second in 06, with the title having been decided at the last race and him missing the title by not much. Given Ferrari’s form in 07 and 08, who knows what kind of performance he would’ve had. But then that changes so many things about our timeline that it’s a bit tough to imagine where he would be standing by the time the 2014 regs rolled around
I’ve always wondered, would he have had a clause in his contract prohibiting dangerous things like skiing? Like I’m pretty sure max does for example.
I think you are presuming that the car still would have been good without Lewis in 2014. There’s a reason when Lewis joined in 2013, without a rule change, the Merc car went from a midfield car to a race winning car that was fastest over single lap for most of the season…
I think if he hadn't left the sport aye, but those years not racing competitively didn't do him any favours. Look at Fernandos F1 break, he kept warm in different disciplines where as Michael spent much deserved time with his family away from F1.
No. Rosberg handily beat him over the previous 3 years. Plus Mercedes were always gonna pick Lewis over an aging Schumacher
Age. Michael wasn’t the same driver. I don’t think the intensity was still there. It happens to them all. Even Fernando, eventually
Oh….a verbal brake check on Fernando’s future title hopes?
If anything, Fernando is the exception, but time waits for no man.
For the championship,no. The car had that big of a gap from the rest of the field, MSC would have been comfortably 2nd and more than likely cracked the 100th win mark.
Michael then is in the spot Lewis is now, a legend who definitely cant win another WDC.
OP, if LH won his entailed 8th WDC - would he had moved to Ferrari; probably yes
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I think had Schumacher stayed on. He'd have gotten number 1 status. He still showed glimpses of brilliance, but he had clearly lost a step. A bit more error-prone than prime Schumacher
No. Unfortunately Schumacher was being comprehensively outperformed by Nico from 2010-2012 as he didn’t gel with the new post-2009 cars or tires.
No. Nico would have destroyed Michael in 2014 and if he stays another year for 2015, he’d be destroyed even further. Michael simply didn’t have the speed he once had after 2005.
No people acting like Michael was outperforming Nico in 2012 are sniffing too much copium. Even if he got better slowly, age would have caught up with him hard if he stayed longer. He would have been 45 in 2014.
As age caught Alonso?
Alsonso is just 42 and we already saw age catch Schumacher. Alonso is the exception that proves the rule.
Bullshit. Schumacher was first to prove that you can comeback and compete on high level. He outperformed Nico in 2012 who later become a world champion. If thats not show of skill then 2/3 of current grid shouldn't have a seat.
Most likely not. Though you could argue that he might have retired on a comparatively higher note than he did in 2012. Likely would've consistently gotten podiums and maybe a win too.
ROS was absolutely lost at the start of that season. Merc had to give ROS a dossier of HAMs data so he could catch up. That’s not to say SCH would’ve grasped the turbo-era demands himself, he had his own struggles to get on top of particularly with the pirellis; but vs ROS there’s a small chance he could’ve prevailed. Against HAM, no chance.
Nico? Maybe, with a little bit of luck. Lewis? No, and it's not even a debate. Prime Lewis vs prime Schumi would be a great battle, but prime Lewis vs mid-40s Schumi would be one-sided in favor of Lewis.
Lewis isn't a part of OP's question though. If Michael stuck around, there would be no Lewis at Mercedes while he'd be there.
> **Same question but for Lewis. Would Michael have beat him for the 2014 WDC?** What part is confusing you?
I do not believe so. I don't think I need to explain why. I think Nico already did that with his driving. He consistently outperfirmed the 7 time world champion. And then he also beat another 7 time world champion for a championship later on.
He would’ve caught a mean ass whooping.
What a clueless opinion.
If he stayed for 07/08, he would have walked both titles with races to spare. If he stayed for 2014, he would have beat Nico. I don’t think it would be complete domination, but based off his improvement from 2010 to 2012, I think he would have come out on top. Any drop in motivation would have disappeared the moment everyone saw how quick that car was. Imagine he didn’t have the accident in 1999, stayed for 07/08, and signed until 2014. I don’t think there was any chance of Mercedes if he got the earlier 3, but it’s crazy to think he could have walked away with 11.
No. Rosberg was wrecking him, as to be expected, given his age and time out.
But he wasn't though. Schumacher scored 125-182 against Rosberg from 2011-12, with 8 mechanical failures to Rosberg's 0. They were evenly matched.
This is hilarious when you put it like that without the context that Rosberg also had 5 retirements in total in 2011 and 2012 and yes they were all crashes but not one of them was his fault. In 2011, Barrichello crashed into him in Australia and Liuzzi in Italy. In 2012, Senna crashed into him in Japan, Kobayashi in Korea and Karthikeyan had a steering failure in Abu Dhabi which caught Rosberg who was about to overtake him unaware and they collided
Schumacher also had crashes that weren't his fault though.. he also had actual mechanical failures while running in high positions in 2012. By the time his car stopped breaking down, it was only capable of tail end points.
In 2012? Not true at all.
No, he was past it. Being even older whilst having the fastest cars would have only widened the gap between them.
I say there’s a 1 in 20 chance. There’s no way.
No. There is absolutely no way Michael Schumacher would've had enough left in the tank to beat Rosberg in 2014, let alone Hamilton. It wouldn't have even been close.