Monday, October 23, 2006

Ode to Schumi


This piece of literature is penned by my buddy Sir. Dillo of KP fame

"Yesterday's race was special and only helped cast my belief in concrete that Schumi is a true race driver...an all round racer I will not get drawn into a debate whether he is the sport's greatest ever.
We all have our opinions and one way or the other it is not going to change the numbers that are associated with schumi Starting 10th on the grid, picking up a tyre puncture, ending up at the back of the grid (18th), almost being lapped by his teammate, losing acceleration a few times bcos of a mechanical problem he still managed to finish 4th on the grid 5s behind Alonso in 2nd and abt 30s behind Massa at the top of the charts.. his two overtaking manouvers on fischella and kimi were awesome...he made fisi look like a bunny

Yday's race amply demonstrated that incredible trait of Schumi "Never give up ". To me this drive ranks next only to his 1998 Belgian GP (ironically schumi never finished that race) in my list Two races he never won but yet the quality of the drive stands out having won 2 world championships with the benetton team, he moved to ferrari in 1996 a team which was legendary for its infamous 3 tyre pitstops and parts falling of from the car From 1996 - 1999 he laboured and came close...the 1999 British GP accident blew his chances

When he returned tht season, he had to help Eddie irvine to fight for the championship.. Eddie [according to me was too overrated a driver] couldn't bear the pressure from Mika hakkinen Schumi stamped his class in the new track of the year - malaysian gp A certain damon hill. jack villeneuve and the flying finn mika hakkinen lapped up the honours in that 4 year period Couple of incidents with damon hill [1996] and jack villeneuve [1997] during the final races brought about the belief that schumi was willing to do anything to win a race.. guess they were regrettable incidents in his career Of the three drivers, Hakkinen was a class apart. He knew only one way to drive and that was to drive fast Not sure if it was the canadian / belgian gp where ricardo zonta was sandwiched b/w mika and schumi on a straight stretch mika came out in frnt at the end of the straight and into the chicane...it was truly awesome..F1 @ its best Kimi is in the same mould ...a certain tommi makkinen set the World rally championship on fire a few years back guess thts the ways finns drive !

From 2000-2004 schumi was the undisputed numero uno, for schumi, ferrari and bridgestone 2005 was a watershed year...it was a real eye sore watching him scraping through, fighting with the back end of the field, winning a 6 car race. Lots of people enjoyed the state schumi was in. Never once during that year, did Schumi point a finger against anybody in the team he kept repeating that they had to improve.. sign of an ultimate team player.. Infact he cut short his vacation and returned to the track for testing.. he had the highest test mileage amongst all the race drivers...For somebody who gets paid $30Mn+ just to drive over the wknds, his act of volunteering for testing showed how focussed he was to get back to his winning ways....guess tht is wht winners do at the other end, our very own big mouth Narain karthikeyan [pun unintended] blamed everybody from the team, the car and the track for his forgettable performance people stayed away from F1 bcos schumi was winning every other gp.. rumoured that FIA went to the extent of coming up with changes to negate the schumi-ferrari advantage and woo the crowds back end of the day they seem to have succeeded.. 2006 was an amazing season...ironical tht the ferrari reliability [last time they had an engine problm was in 2000] played a part in the japanese gp..being 26 points down, schumi had levelled the scores the final race was all about the constructor's ...schumi himself admitted tht the driver's championship was over... But not for once on the track did he ever make us believe tht By his own admission,..he is just a normal human being with an ability to drive fast would beg to differ It was truly inspiring watching this man drive an F1 car all these years Ill surely miss watching schumi drive miss hearing that cliched statement from steve slater on star sports.. "Michael magic" "
Jollygood I wud say ....

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