- Drawing the line.. -
It's amazing how people deal with difficult situations. Resilience and determination are two characteristics I like to consider myself as having built over the years, and qualities I admire in others greatly. However there comes a point at which resilience and determination can become dangerous, and what I admire more in people is their ability to recognise when to back off. Michael Schumacher's statistical successes in Formula 1 are unrivalled in many instances (91 wins, 68 pole positions, 7 world championships..) though he has often been tarred with an apparent inability to know when to draw the line under pressure. Hungary 2010 unfortunately again bore witness to this side of the German's character.
Schumacher's 2010 F1 comeback year has been difficult to say the least. He has so far struggled to adapt to the changed regulations of the sport and has as a result despite his moments notched up just 38 points compared to team mate Nico Rosberg on 94, has struggled to make it into Q3 on occasions and has also had his driving called into question (particularly at the Canadian GP). Despite some of these difficulties being the result of a 3 year break from the sport and also the difficulties Mercedes have faced with the W01 not meeting expectations, many have speculated on the potential re-retirement of F1's most successful driver come the end of the season. Rubens Barrichello has also a large amount of history with Schumacher dating back to their years as team-mates as Ferrari, but Schumacher's defensive move on the Brazilian came incredibly close to causing a big accident. Schumacher may have received a 10 place grid penalty for Spa for his indisgressions but since Barrichello avoided the wall and no cars were exiting the pit lane he should probably thank himself lucky things weren't a whole lot worse.
Not a good weekend for Mercedes overall either. A botched pitstop resulted in Nico Rosberg's rear right wheel coming loose and narrowly missing several mechanics (already distracted by Kubica and Sutil colliding in the pitlane, which Renault and Force India mechanics were lucky to avoid), and ended with the German squad scoring 0 points for the first time this season. The two events must have left team officials wondering how they'd managed such a lucky escape twice in one weekend.
Continuing to ramble,
Sandlefish
* Pictures from http://www.autosport.com (2010 Hungarian GP and 2010 Malaysian GP Archives).
* Video taken from YouTube: Click on video while playing to access original source.
Schumacher's 2010 F1 comeback year has been difficult to say the least. He has so far struggled to adapt to the changed regulations of the sport and has as a result despite his moments notched up just 38 points compared to team mate Nico Rosberg on 94, has struggled to make it into Q3 on occasions and has also had his driving called into question (particularly at the Canadian GP). Despite some of these difficulties being the result of a 3 year break from the sport and also the difficulties Mercedes have faced with the W01 not meeting expectations, many have speculated on the potential re-retirement of F1's most successful driver come the end of the season. Rubens Barrichello has also a large amount of history with Schumacher dating back to their years as team-mates as Ferrari, but Schumacher's defensive move on the Brazilian came incredibly close to causing a big accident. Schumacher may have received a 10 place grid penalty for Spa for his indisgressions but since Barrichello avoided the wall and no cars were exiting the pit lane he should probably thank himself lucky things weren't a whole lot worse.
Not a good weekend for Mercedes overall either. A botched pitstop resulted in Nico Rosberg's rear right wheel coming loose and narrowly missing several mechanics (already distracted by Kubica and Sutil colliding in the pitlane, which Renault and Force India mechanics were lucky to avoid), and ended with the German squad scoring 0 points for the first time this season. The two events must have left team officials wondering how they'd managed such a lucky escape twice in one weekend.Continuing to ramble,
Sandlefish
* Pictures from http://www.autosport.com (2010 Hungarian GP and 2010 Malaysian GP Archives).
* Video taken from YouTube: Click on video while playing to access original source.
