Armstrong and Schumacher

attica

There are lots of comparisons to be drawn between the two of them:-

7 times winners
Ruthless desire to win
Outspoken and unpopular with their competitors
Built the best team in the business around themselves
Retired before the inevitable decline brought on by getting older
Came out of retirement...

I just can't help wondering if Schuey will emerge from the whole thing with far more dignity and having caused less damage to his reputation than Armstrong seems to be doing, despite the whole Livestrong thing I get the feeling that Schuey is coming out of retirement for a better reason, discuss...

SBezza

Schumacher is coming out of retirement as a stand in for Massa, and the genuinely help the team, Armstrong came back for his own self promotion.

As soon as Massa is fit to get back in the car Schumacher will step down, I can't ever see it being a permanent thing. Don't forget his is still employed by Ferrari, as an advisor/consultant.

I feel sorry for Marc Gene, as he is the nominated 3rd driver for Ferrari, though I am glad Schumacher is back, I always thought he retired too early.

prawny

I didn't like schumi when he was racing but I've warmed to him recently, I'm the opposite with lance.

Also to be fair Schumacher di do all the races not just the french GP :P

dulldave

At first I thought you were talking about Stefan. Was thinking - 'here we go'

DaveyL

If Kimi Raikkonen has to borrow his brother's car for qualifying, there may well be some similarities.

DaveyL

(That was a joke and not to be taken literally, obviously I know that Bertie did not have his bike nicked...)

prawny

Marc Gene might get his chance anyway, Kimi's doing the rally of finland this weekend. I'm surprised Ferrari would let him do something that dnagerous mid season.

bs147

Schumi's re-appearance may give Kimi the incentive to give up the sauce and perform consistently! On the other hand, if he's slower than the returnee then he may double his intake!

Good brave move by Schumacher - if he gives Ferrari their first win of the season he'll be in the running for being the next Pope! Shame about the testing ban so he'll be a little rusty perhaps but after a few races it will be like he has never been away!

andyrac

dulldave wrote:

At first I thought you were talking about Stefan. Was thinking - 'here we go'

So did I, are they related?

One has a big strange head, the other has a strange chin......

RichN95.

prawny wrote:

Marc Gene might get his chance anyway, Kimi's doing the rally of finland this weekend. I'm surprised Ferrari would let him do something that dnagerous mid season.

Any other driver and you'd ahve a point, but Kimi's a complete loose cannon who won't take the slightest bit of notice of what Ferrari tell him to do..

He was once stopped by his team from doing a power boat race. He went ahead and did it anyway disguised in a gorilla outfit.

Robmanic1

i guess it will be a measure of how good he really is/was, if he can make that car win. I doubt he will be able to squeeze much extra performance out of it TBH.

afx237vi

If Schumacher is going back to Formula 1, who's gonna do the power laps on Top Gear?

Bronzie

Don't really follow F1 any more, so feel free to flame-grill me, but there was an F1 pundit on the radio this morning saying that Schumacher's comeback would be harder to achieve than Armstrong's podium finish because the cars have got so much quicker since he retired that he'd find it so physically draining to race again.

Now, I know an F1 car is a bit more taxing to drive than my diesel VW, but can this guy seriously compare the 2 and conclude that Schumacher will have the tougher job.

I suspect that like Armstrong, Schumacher would not contemplate coming back out of retirement unless he KNEW he had a pretty good chance of making a go at it.

And if it all goes t*ts up for him, at least he can blame the equipment, unlike Armstrong.

SBezza

I doubt the cars are that much faster TBH, now they do handle differently, because of no traction control and the like, but Schumacher drove in F1 after these were banned in 1994, and was pretty successful. There will be a huge challenge however not being able to test prior to driving, because of the test ban. He did drive last year's car in testing before the start of last season, and was still pretty hot.

It will be interesting if Ferrari drag out last years car and get Schumacher to have a few laps in that, I am not sure if that is allowed, I know he can't do anything other than straight line testing in the current car.

No doubt at Valencia he will do a mountain of laps in the practise sessions, and it won't take him long to find his feet again. He is still a very fit person, so I doubt fitness will be an issue, he is probably still fitter than some of the current F1 drivers.

timoid.

You missed out on one silimarity: They're both Ferrari powered.

Gazzaputt

It was commented a lot that the tests done on Schumacher showed him to be one of the fittest athletes competing in sport.

mididoctors

timoid. wrote:

You missed out on one silimarity: They're both Ferrari powered.

boom boom

attica

SBezza wrote:

I doubt the cars are that much faster TBH

I've just done a quick comparison between Silverstone this year and in 2006, both were dry races.
Vettel won in 1h22m49.328 this year
Alonso won in 1h25m51.927 in 2006

which equates to 3s a lap over the 60 laps however there was a safety car period which easily negates any comparison

however based on fastest laps:

2006, the fastest lap was 1:21.599 by Alonso
2009, the fastest lap was 1:20.735 by Vettel

So there's not really masses of difference there.

(Can anybody remember a race that was both dry and safety car free in 2006 and 2009 for a better race long comparison?)

avoidingmyphd

i'm sure that f1 is extremely physically demanding, but the idea that the physical demands would be more of a barrier to a return for schumacher in f1 than for armstrong in le tour is fatuous. It can only have been suggested by the kind of person who asks cyclists if the saddle hurts their bum.

andyp

On the physical side, Armstrong announced his comeback in September last year, although we don't know how long before that he'd decided on it and started training, and rode his first race in January. Schumacher announced his comeback yesterday and will compete in his first race in less than a month.

F1 is very physically demanding btw, hence why all the drivers train like the professional athletes they are.

SBezza

attica wrote:

SBezza wrote:

I doubt the cars are that much faster TBH

I've just done a quick comparison between Silverstone this year and in 2006, both were dry races.
Vettel won in 1h22m49.328 this year
Alonso won in 1h25m51.927 in 2006

which equates to 3s a lap over the 60 laps however there was a safety car period which easily negates any comparison

however based on fastest laps:

2006, the fastest lap was 1:21.599 by Alonso
2009, the fastest lap was 1:20.735 by Vettel

So there's not really masses of difference there.

(Can anybody remember a race that was both dry and safety car free in 2006 and 2009 for a better race long comparison?)

They are still not as fast as when Schumacher was at his height, he probably still holds alot of the lap records, though can't be bothered to find them.

The cars might be slightly faster and some of this will be due to slick tyres, but alot of the aero has gone, so are they faster in a straight line, and slightly slower on the corners (where the real impact is felt), or are they faster everywhere, compared to 2006, it is so difficult to tell, plus he drove the 2007 car and the 2008 car in testing, and was just as fast - if not faster- than the current drivers.

Le Commentateur

Oh... that Schumacher.

emadden

Le Commentateur wrote:

Oh... that Schumacher.

No stefan... Ferrari reckon that as his head is empty, if he gets hit in the head with a spring it wont affect him

teagar

SBezza wrote:

attica wrote:

SBezza wrote:

I doubt the cars are that much faster TBH

I've just done a quick comparison between Silverstone this year and in 2006, both were dry races.
Vettel won in 1h22m49.328 this year
Alonso won in 1h25m51.927 in 2006

which equates to 3s a lap over the 60 laps however there was a safety car period which easily negates any comparison

however based on fastest laps:

2006, the fastest lap was 1:21.599 by Alonso
2009, the fastest lap was 1:20.735 by Vettel

So there's not really masses of difference there.

(Can anybody remember a race that was both dry and safety car free in 2006 and 2009 for a better race long comparison?)

They are still not as fast as when Schumacher was at his height, he probably still holds alot of the lap records, though can't be bothered to find them.

The cars might be slightly faster and some of this will be due to slick tyres, but alot of the aero has gone, so are they faster in a straight line, and slightly slower on the corners (where the real impact is felt), or are they faster everywhere, compared to 2006, it is so difficult to tell, plus he drove the 2007 car and the 2008 car in testing, and was just as fast - if not faster- than the current drivers.

Schumacher regularly tests all the current F1 Ferraris.

He'll be pretty familiar with it all.


Anyway, his standards of fitness compared to his rivals were substantially higher so I don't think he'll find that too much of a problem.


Ever since the age of 4 I've been a Schumacher fan, for no other reason other than for as long as I can remember I supported him. When he retired I turned to being just an out and out ferarri fan.

Very excited, though idealy this sitution should never really have occured.

takethehighroad

Yeah but don't the rules mean that he's not allowed to test this year's?

That's why Alguesuari was so bad, 'cos he hadn't had practice in a fully racing F1 car?

SBezza

teagar wrote:

Schumacher regularly tests all the current F1 Ferraris.

He hasn't touched the F60, as there was limited testing at the beginning of the year, done by the test and race drivers, and since the start of the season there has been a test ban, banning any circuit running. He might have done a few straight line tests, but I doubt it.

So he can not have done any regular testing of this years car, or Ferrari have broken the rules massively, even their own test track is easily visible from a public road.

bikerZA

Another sportsmen that I despise coming back. Great.

epr

I used to like Schumacher, then when he started winning anything I began to dislike hims, now he's retired I've begun to like him again. He seems to have a bit of a sense of humour and can laugh at himself - one advantage he definitely has over Armstrong.

There were definitely some unsavoury moments in his career - e.g., Damon, Jacques, and that incident with Barrichello in Austria a few years ago. But remember Schumacher did drive in support of Eddie Irvine in '99 (in the last few races where he came back after breaking his legs at Silverstone) without making too much of a fuss, even though Ferrari was built around him much more than Astana was built around Armstrong.

Le Commentateur

To give him his due he used to spend a lot of time in the garage working with the technical staff, more than the other drivers were at that time with perhaps the exception of Senna.

attica

So it's actually gonna happen this time (here)

I'm interested to see how it all pans out this year, a lot depends on the new Mercedes.

moray_gub

andyp wrote:

On the physical side, Armstrong announced his comeback in September last year, although we don't know how long before that he'd decided on it and started training, and rode his first race in January. Schumacher announced his comeback yesterday and will compete in his first race in less than a month.

F1 is very physically demanding btw, hence why all the drivers train like the professional athletes they are.

To even compare the two in terms of physical demands is nonsense imo, sure you need to be really fit to drive F1 but it aint in the same stratosphere as any Tour rider in terms of fitness. Schumaker was getting fit for a comeback last year so id imagine he was in good shape anyway. I dont like the guy much but his taking out of Damon Hill remains one of the funniest things i have witnesed in the sport. The British press went ballistic with headlins of Schu dirty rat etc.........brilliant so it was.