Schumacher cancels comeback, Badoer steps in

[jon-mullen]

A third car just for Shumi is ridiculous.

Isn't it amazing how athletes always seem to forget their reasons for retiring in the first place? I love the guy, I think he's a great driver. But even after pulling some underhanded stunts and getting a favorable ruling on the mass damper he wasn't all that competitive in 2006. Granted, he did have worse luck than Alonso in a couple races. Still I would've thought he'd remember that he wasn't his best self when he was trying to stay competitive that year.

He went out as close to "on top" as he was going to. I understand filling in for Massa and I thought that was a great idea. But another championship season? Ease off Mike, you already won (what was it? 11??).

[RacingManiac]

That's more of a Luca's hope than anything else I think....

I think it would be interesting to have a 3rd car system, with rotating driver for the big teams that can afford it. Make it not eligible for WCC points(or use the old WRC system of nominating the point scorer), and we can perhaps have more new blood into the sport....

though, I still think whoever drives should have minimum track time in a car with similar performance level....

[Richard]

I did say a while back that the return was not 100% because of the neck injury. But no one listens.

I also called it as unlikely at the start, then I ate my hat, now I have to regurgitate my hat!

neck fractures are a serious issue and possibly fantasy took over reality...

Hopefully, if/when Massa returns will be a more grounded decision.

[Richard]

He will be back in a Ferrari as soon as possible.

Are you expecting the Coulthard-Mansell scenario?

Mischievous thought .... I wonder what would happen if the new guy out qualifies/paces/races Kimi?

[Richard]

Sorry about the multpiple posts but this thread is a gold mine ...

You guys don't get it. The night before the qualifying .... It's obvious that his eyebrows give him divinatory powers, so he knew that, after 3/4 pi + 0.1 radians counterclockwise rotation of the screwdriver

Brilliant. Some say he personally instructs the engineering designers so they can get 3/10ths a lap. Is he the stig? Was the Shumi-Stig a set up to distract us?

all the soberano bull figures in Spain would be replace with gigantic sculptures of Flavio wearing a teeny weeny string thong.

NO! [-X How dare you put that image into our minds.... I'll need therapy to recover! *insert vomit smiley here*

spring to mind

Interesting choice of words!

[PlatinumZealot]

I found this graph on F1fanatic.co.uk. It a comparison of Luca Badoer's lap times to Kimi Raikkonen's.

What I find concerning is Luca's inconsistency.

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2009/08/24/b ... -analysis/




This the author's synopsis:

OK, his first race back wasn’t good. But just how bad was Luca Badoer’s European Grand Prix?

By the end of lap one the spread of the field meant Badoer was 17.16 seconds behind team mate Kimi Raikkonen. Come the end of the race, he was 167 seconds behind – yes, two minutes and 47 seconds. Although part of that was his drive-through penalty, which likely cost him around 15 seconds.

Looking at his lap times offers little comfort. He set his best lap towards the end of the race, signifying some improvement, but his 1′40.590 was the third-slowest of the race, only beating the Toro Rossos.

With the best will in the world, the scale of improvement needed from Badoer at Spa is massive if he is to keep his place in the car

[Saribro]

What I find concerning is Luca's inconsistency.

By that point, I'm wondering how much of that is related to being lapped and having to yield to faster cars.

[Fil]

yeh good thinking Saribro, up til lap 27 he seemed pretty reasonable compared to Kimi (consistency-wise), after his first pitstop, his pace would have been severely hampered by blue flags.

As a well-regarded test driver, the assumption would be that consistency is one of his greatest attributes.

[jddh1]

In an interview in Brazil, Massa mentions that Schumi would lose his vision when hitting the kerbs due to massive vibrations of the car.
Makes sense, doesn't it. If you're too long away from a drive you tend to lose these reflexes.
Anyway, hope Massa gets well soon and hits the track on the Red Ferrari.

[oj1983]

Interesting comparison. I've gotta say, Kimi's consistancy is pretty impressive, looks like he got pretty much the most from the car. To be fair to Luca, while he had clear air for the first 25ish laps his times were reasonably consistant, if somewhat slow. I seems that from lap 28 onwards his pace was massively hampered, which I would put down to by blue flags. There are periods (for example laps 49 to 52) where he regains some consistancy again, probably due to not being lapped during these laps. It would be interesting to see a similar comparison for another backmarker from a different race, if only to compare the relative consistancy of the lap times.

If Ferrari are using Luca's races as extended test sessions for '10 I can see the point, he obviously has decent engineering knowledge to be testing for them all these years. It may even turn out a brilliant plan, I just don't think Ferrari realised quite how off the race pace he'd be!

[Crabbia]

surely they must be looking at replacing him now. On a track with which he says he is familiar, he is still 2 seconds of kimi's pace. that is just unnacceptable. i understand that they probably get alot of benefit from testing and that he may even have testing components on his car that or slowing him, but this is just embarrassing for the team. all i can say is that he better be giving them great feed back to the engineers, not only for the race setup and for the development of this car but also for the next, otherwise he is an incredible and unnecessary waste in that car.

Just thinking, and its probably been asked before but surely if he is this far off the pace and not anywhere near the limit, how beneficial could his feedback be as these cars are driven in a race and are meant to be driven on the limit? he is not giving feedback on the behaviour of the car at the car's maximum capability cause he simply cant get there.

some might argue that in a test session he has more time to set up a car and get good time out of it and so be closer to getting the car near the limit but with the limitation on inseason testing this cant be viable either, he is using a laps to get up to speed where he should be using them to develop the car on the limit, as schumacher would have done.

Ferrari management should be very worried as this shows there is a large performace gap between the drivers developing the car and those that are driving it. any way you cut it that is a problem.

[RH1300S]

Roughly speaking he is at 98% of the car's potential. I don't know if this is quick enough to give good testing feedback.

However - think about this....he MIGHT be closer to the car's potential BUT not the track's potential.

Surely a good test driver would run the car neatly and consistently around a circuit to get reliable feedback.

The race driver on the other hand will scramble over kerbs and steal tiny bits of time wherever he can. These tiny bits of time may confuse feedback when testing, but will add up to a better lap-time.

Perhaps that's the difference between having been a test driver and a race driver.

Oh - I'm not making excuses for him; bottom line - he isn't going fast enough....

[mx_tifoso]

Belgium

[StrFerrari4Ever]

If he was back they would've sold like hot cakes.

[jddh1]

I love how it's an "Official Licensed Product".
They even copied that. Bernie must be mad when seeing this.