Will Schumacher's Race Win and WDC records be broken?

[NathanOlder]

Sure, it's never one man's job. But you need self belief, vision and an ability to trust the right people. All of that, was there in abundance in the journey of his success.

Yeah, and well done to Michael for raising the bar so high. Unfortunately for him, Lewis is about to raise it further.

[Moore77]

Sure, it's never one man's job. But you need self belief, vision and an ability to trust the right people. All of that, was there in abundance in the journey of his success.

Yeah, and well done to Michael for raising the bar so high. Unfortunately for him, Lewis is about to raise it further.

You mean the number of wins and titles, driving dominant cars? Yes. I agree. How often does a driver get to drive cars that are miles ahead of the competition. Hats off to Mercedes!

[NathanOlder]

Mercedes and Lewis you mean. without Lewis, 17 & 18 may have slipped through their finger tips. Hats off to Mercedes AND Lewis Hamilton.

[Moore77]

Mercedes and Lewis you mean. without Lewis, 17 & 18 may have slipped through their finger tips. Hats off to Mercedes AND Lewis Hamilton.

I didn't mean anything, but If it makes you feel happy, then so be it.

[NathanOlder]

Mercedes and Lewis you mean. without Lewis, 17 & 18 may have slipped through their finger tips. Hats off to Mercedes AND Lewis Hamilton.

I didn't mean anything, but If it makes you feel happy, then so be it.

Oh no, I'm more than happy. I am a Mercedes & Lewis fan. I can't be any happier. Please don't worry about me.

[Just_a_fan]

Sure, it's never one man's job. But you need self belief, vision and an ability to trust the right people. All of that, was there in abundance in the journey of his success.

Yeah, and well done to Michael for raising the bar so high. Unfortunately for him, Lewis is about to raise it further.

You mean the number of wins and titles, driving dominant cars? Yes. I agree. How often does a driver get to drive cars that are miles ahead of the competition. Hats off to Mercedes!

Exactly as with Schumacher. Hats off to Ferrari for building dominant cars.

Of course, if Schumacher didn't need a dominant car then he'd have won titles in '97, '98 and '99 too. Oh, and 2005 and 2006.

The fact is that no one wins titles in bad cars. They're either the best or, occasionally, second best car on the grid.

[Moore77]

Yeah, and well done to Michael for raising the bar so high. Unfortunately for him, Lewis is about to raise it further.

You mean the number of wins and titles, driving dominant cars? Yes. I agree. How often does a driver get to drive cars that are miles ahead of the competition. Hats off to Mercedes!

Exactly as with Schumacher. Hats off to Ferrari for building dominant cars.

Of course, if Schumacher didn't need a dominant car then he'd have won titles in '97, '98 and '99 too. Oh, and 2005 and 2006.

The fact is that no one wins titles in bad cars. They're either the best or, occasionally, second best car on the grid.

Absolutely. But certainly can amass wins and titles in dominant cars with toothless team mates. It's entirely another art to build strong teams ground up and then win titles.

[Just_a_fan]

You mean the number of wins and titles, driving dominant cars? Yes. I agree. How often does a driver get to drive cars that are miles ahead of the competition. Hats off to Mercedes!

Exactly as with Schumacher. Hats off to Ferrari for building dominant cars.

Of course, if Schumacher didn't need a dominant car then he'd have won titles in '97, '98 and '99 too. Oh, and 2005 and 2006.

The fact is that no one wins titles in bad cars. They're either the best or, occasionally, second best car on the grid.

Absolutely. But certainly can amass wins and titles in dominant cars with toothless team mates. It's entirely another art to build strong teams ground up and then win titles.

Ummm, accusing Hamilton of having toothless team mates is cute when Schumacher had contractually number 2 team mates.

[Jolle]

You mean the number of wins and titles, driving dominant cars? Yes. I agree. How often does a driver get to drive cars that are miles ahead of the competition. Hats off to Mercedes!

Exactly as with Schumacher. Hats off to Ferrari for building dominant cars.

Of course, if Schumacher didn't need a dominant car then he'd have won titles in '97, '98 and '99 too. Oh, and 2005 and 2006.

The fact is that no one wins titles in bad cars. They're either the best or, occasionally, second best car on the grid.

Absolutely. But certainly can amass wins and titles in dominant cars with toothless team mates. It's entirely another art to build strong teams ground up and then win titles.

All hail to Jean Todt and his bottomless bag of PMI money? (As Dennis did for them from 84-91)

[El Scorchio]

Isn’t building a strong team from the ground up exactly what happened with MB from Honda/Brawn onward anyway? They were about to fold. Sure MB injected a load of money to get them to where they are but as mentioned Ferrari aren’t/weren’t exactly paupers in the 90s/00’s either. Richest team on the grid already, back then? Plus way more political power to take the sport in the way they wanted to.

[Moore77]

Exactly as with Schumacher. Hats off to Ferrari for building dominant cars.

Of course, if Schumacher didn't need a dominant car then he'd have won titles in '97, '98 and '99 too. Oh, and 2005 and 2006.

The fact is that no one wins titles in bad cars. They're either the best or, occasionally, second best car on the grid.

Absolutely. But certainly can amass wins and titles in dominant cars with toothless team mates. It's entirely another art to build strong teams ground up and then win titles.

All hail to Jean Todt and his bottomless bag of PMI money? (As Dennis did for them from 84-91)

Jean Todt himself was about to be fired in 1996 and got rescued by Schumacher. It's his own admission and I posted that link a couple of pages back. As for money, Mercedes is constantly being accused of the same! Allegedly, they spent billions and billions to build the engines and the cars with unprecedented resources! We all agree that, without money, you can't achieve and sustain success. Then there were Toyotas and Hondas of 2000s who spent millions and millions, but couldn't achieve success. While money is absolutely necessary, but doesn't guarantee success.

[Moore77]

Exactly as with Schumacher. Hats off to Ferrari for building dominant cars.

Of course, if Schumacher didn't need a dominant car then he'd have won titles in '97, '98 and '99 too. Oh, and 2005 and 2006.

The fact is that no one wins titles in bad cars. They're either the best or, occasionally, second best car on the grid.

Absolutely. But certainly can amass wins and titles in dominant cars with toothless team mates. It's entirely another art to build strong teams ground up and then win titles.

Ummm, accusing Hamilton of having toothless team mates is cute when Schumacher had contractually number 2 team mates.

You didn't seem to read the post that I had put a few pages back where Brawn denounced Schumacher's team mates being No.2. The most official authority to do so. How would anyone else not part of the decision making at Ferrari would ever know? People outside of Ferrari have been constantly peddling that lie that, Schumacher had contracted No.2. It's good lie which helped people argue against his success.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... ross-brawn

What about the role of Michael’s team-mates at Ferrari – Eddie Irvine, Rubens Barrichello, Felipe Massa – and controversial races like the 2002 Austrian GP, when Barrichello reluctantly obeyed an order to move aside and allow Schumacher to win?

“The only contractual advantage Michael ever had over his team-mate was that he had first call on the spare car, and because of rule changes the spare car has not been an issue in recent years. But we would always take a decision in a race that we felt was best for Ferrari. Those decisions tended to favour Michael, because he was in the best position to win the championship – but it was never a case of Michael is the No 1 driver, so he has to get this or that.

“We had some difficult times with Rubens, who gave Michael quite a hard time competitively during his six seasons with us. If Rubens had been 20 points ahead of Michael in the championship, it would have been logical for all the strategy decisions to favour him. But it never occurred.

“That race in Austria caused a furore. But you have to remember that at that stage in the championship Michael had 44 points to Rubens’ six points, and of course we wanted to maximise Michael’s chances of the title. Championships have been lost in the past by a single point. We asked Rubens several laps before the end to concede position, but he wouldn’t until the last few hundred metres. These things are all discussed beforehand in the calm of the motorhome, so Rubens knew the score.

“But he’s a passionate guy, he was leading the race, and I can understand how he felt. Three races later (by which time Schumacher’s championship was almost, but not quite, clinched) we let Rubens lead Michael home in Germany.”

You are free to peddle that lie. But you have to agree that Bottas has been the best "wingman" there ever has been, helping Hamilton win 4 titles.

[Just_a_fan]

It's good lie which helped people argue against his success.

Barichello gave some useful insights in to the dynamic within the team. For example, they'd have a team meeting and then the team would have a separate special meeting with Michael that Barichello never got and was never invited to. So he invited himself to one.

"So many times I grabbed my chair because the meeting was already finished and then they started another meeting with just Michael there and I said, hmm this is funny.

"I took my chair and I just would sit there, say nothing and just stay there."

To think that Michael never had any special advantages from the team is a laugh.

[Moore77]

It's good lie which helped people argue against his success.

Barichello gave some useful insights in to the dynamic within the team. For example, they'd have a team meeting and then the team would have a separate special meeting with Michael that Barichello never got and was never invited to. So he invited himself to one.

"So many times I grabbed my chair because the meeting was already finished and then they started another meeting with just Michael there and I said, hmm this is funny.

"I took my chair and I just would sit there, say nothing and just stay there."

To think that Michael never had any special advantages from the team is a laugh.

This is clutching on to straws. Taking what Barrichello said, without any context to it.

Show me a statement from Irvine, Barrichell or Massa, which is as clear as the way Brawn said about Schumacher not having any kind of Special No. 1 status in the team. Show me where either of his team mates say, "I had in my contract that I was No. 2".

For a reference, while F1 fraternity is talking about Sainz being No. 2 to Leclerc, this is how he clears the air.

https://www.essentiallysports.com/f1-ne ... t-ferrari/

Carlos Sainz was interviewed by Radio Marca. He said, “I have not signed anything that says I’m the second pilot. In my contract, it says, as in all those I have signed, that the team is above the pilot, but does not put anything about second place or supporting anyone.”

You can easily relate what Barrichello said to what Bottas said on radio of late in Spa when his engineer informed him of an agreement of not using higher power mode, Bottas said, "never heard that before". One can say, Bottas is probably not being invited to some of those meetings!

[tangodjango]

It's good lie which helped people argue against his success.

Barichello gave some useful insights in to the dynamic within the team. For example, they'd have a team meeting and then the team would have a separate special meeting with Michael that Barichello never got and was never invited to. So he invited himself to one.

"So many times I grabbed my chair because the meeting was already finished and then they started another meeting with just Michael there and I said, hmm this is funny.

"I took my chair and I just would sit there, say nothing and just stay there."

To think that Michael never had any special advantages from the team is a laugh.

There are much better uses of your time than engaging.