А вот за что.
10 Reasons Why We Should Give Schumi A Chance.
There"s nobody in F1 who causes such a strong reaction as Michael Schumacher. Schumi is like the Citroen 2CV, Marmite or Installation Artists. You either love them or you hate them. There aren"t too many people sitting on the fence.
I"m a firm believer that the more you understand Michael and how his mindset works, the more you can admire him. I"m not part of that band of brothers - affectionately known in the excellent P-F1 chat forum as "the disciples" - for whom Schumi can do no wrong. He"s clearly done wrong in the past. But you don"t get to the top in professional sport and stay there without upsetting a few people along the way.
Time and time again I"ve heard people in the paddock, who I respect, say that the Michael Schumacher you see on television isn"t the same one they work with day in, day out. Steve Matchett, who writes technical features for Planet-F1 and is a pundit on the Speed channel, worked with Michael at Benetton. Steve is a no-nonsense, down-to-earth kind of guy. Having worked with Michael in some very tense situations from when he signed in 91 to when he left in 95, Steve hasn"t got a bad word to say about him.
In a year when Schumi will be appearing on the podium every fortnight, I think it"s time we all cuddled up to the man from Kerpen. Blimey, how can the Brits not like him when he"s nice to dogs...
HE"S NICE TO DOGS
On the way back from the Brazilian Grand Prix one time, he felt extremely sorry for a stray dog he saw from the window of his hire car. He put the dog through Brazilian quarantine, named him Floh ("Flea") and took him back to Germany.
HE TAKES TIME
One of the things that Michael does give is his time. We"ll come back to the point later on, but this is a small, small example that illustrates the way he is. I collect Minichamps F1 cars - a few of the ones I have are signed and I"ve noticed on this, and on other items of memorabilia that Michael signs, he takes the trouble to sign his name.
Most drivers have developed a squiggle that represents their names. Unless you"re F.Massa or T.Sato you"ve got quite a lot of work to do, so a squiggle is only practical. Considering he"s the world champ and his name goes on forever, Michael"s "squiggle" is painstakingly scripted.
HE"S EXUBERANT
We"ve not seen too many of the podium gymnastics this year, but Michael clearly enjoys winning and shows it. Perhaps with power steering and the levels of fitness drivers have these days they"re not so drained at the end of races, but through the 80"s and 90"s when we had Prost vs Senna vs Piquet and occasionally Mansell, podiums were often dour, joyless places. It was almost as though it wasn"t cool to enjoy the win. Schumi changed that.
HE PUTS IN WORK FOR CHARITY
Michael"s football team raises money for UNESCO. A lot of F1 personalities, both teams (Mclaren and Williams especially) and drivers do get involved with charitable causes. Some don"t. Michael does his bit.
HE"S OPEN AND HONEST
Michael gets a lot of criticism for his insistance on being No.1 in the Ferrari team. He"s open and honest about it. Be believes that"s the best way to take the team forward and says so. There have been instances in the past when drivers will "play politics" in the team to get the upper hand instead. It"s rumoured that when Alain Prost joined Nigel Mansell at Ferrari, he decided that Mansell"s car was better than his and got the team to secretly change over the seat, numbers and driver settings so that Nigel wouldn"t realize. Unfortunately Nigel twigged that this wasn"t his car and their relationship within the team went rapidly downhill.
With Michael, what you see is what you get.
HE"S GENEROUS
Let"s put one ghost to bed. Michael is not tight-fisted. Here"s an extract from Life In The Fast Lane, the book Steve Matchett wrote about Benetton"s World Championship winning year in 1994 from his position as a mechanic in the team.
It"s February, and the team have been testing in Jerez.
On the final night of our stay in Jerez, Michael took the whole team out to dinner. This was a nice gesture and is something he likes to do quite often. He sees it as a way of thanking everyone for the effort put into preparing the car for him and is appreciated by us all I think.
"Order whatever you would like," he told us, "the bill will be kept open all night!" We were still there, lounging backing the chairs, drinking and chatting long after Michael had gone to bed.
HE"S LOYAL
Without Michael"s help his brother wouldn"t be an F1 driver today. Willi Weber"s got a lot to do with it too, but Ralf had a fairly undistinguished first year at Jordan in 1997. The fact that the Schumacher name stood for so much bought Ralf the time to improve and show that he was a talent in his own right. Michael has supported him right the way through his racing career.
Michael"s also loyal to the people who work for him. His personal press spokesman Heiner Buchinger had various illnesses over the years yet Michael would not dispense with his services. When I was working at F1 Racing magazine the editor, Matt Bishop, found it very difficult to get through the Ferrari press machine. So he"d ring "Buchinger" and Buchinger would normally fix it. Things came to a head after Michael broke his leg in 1999 and Buchinger was not singing from the Ferrari hymn sheet. Luca Montezemolo gave Michael the three-line whip to get rid of him or else. I imagine when MS writes his autobiography that will go down as one of the biggest wrenches of his career.
He"s loyal to Ferrari too. Yes, they pay him a lot of money. A hell of a lot of money, but Mclaren used to pay Ayrton Senna a hell of a lot of money too. I don"t recall Michael having a stand-off with Luca Montezemolo about the team upping his salary and threatening not to turn up at the first race unless they did.
HE"S NOT A ROBOT
You can hardly label someone who lists The Pope and Pele as his two great idols as "a robot". Or someone who breaks down in tears during a press conference when being asked a question about Ayrton Senna. Michael"s Germanic nature and the way he translates makes him come across as arrogant, when really all he"s being is logical.
Take the press conference from Barcelona. The interviewer says, "Michael, that was a truly dominant drive, masterful."
To which Schumi answers, "Yes."
That sounds arrogant, but Michael will have computed the question as, "That was a drive where you were in control of the race from the front". So logically, yes, he was. He doesn"t get the nuances of the language.
HE"S 110% COMMITTED
It"s an over-used phrase but Michael more than any other driver puts an enormous amount of time into making his team a success. Again it"s part of his Germanic nature, the thoroughness, the attention to detail. In the UK three years ago we had some great adverts for the Volkswagen Passat that were absolutely Michael Schumacher. They showed various VW engineers - typical German guys - who were responsible for different areas of the car in their own specialist fields. One guy was just opening and closing doors listening to the sound of the door being closed. That"s Schumi.
He"ll test the car until it gets dark, after the test he"ll wait behind and talk over the data with the engineers till the problem is solved. While a lot of drivers get out of the car and get in the helicopter, Michael is prepared to sit and talk about the results until the solution is found.
Heiner Buchinger says that unlike Ralf, Michael takes the time and trouble to get to know his mechanics, he asks about their families, he spends time and he gets involved. That"s why they love him so much. That"s why in Barcelona when his car broke down out on the circuit in practice on Saturday morning, he virtually put the tow straps on himself and drove the truck back. Michael"s view on F1 is that if you"re going to get involved you do it to the maximum degree.
HE"S A GREAT MOTIVATOR (AND HE HASN"T CHANGED)
Steve Matchett on Schumi"s first win for Benetton at Spa in 1992.
"On returning to the garage he shook everyone by the hand, thanking us all individually for our help, another genuine show of appreciation that would continue with every subsequent win. I have never felt such an integral part of a team than when working with Michael and sharing the pleasure of one of our victories.
As the crowds bulged from the circuit gates and we began packing equipment in to the back of the race trucks, Michael changed out of his overalls. He waved us farewell and set off on a bicycle, his victor"s trophy strapped on the back to meet his parents who were staying in one of the local hotels. Michael gradually disappeared out of sight, ringing his bell, gently turning left and right, avoiding small groups that were slowly plodding up the hill. What a marvelous sight. Here was Michael Schumacher, the winner of the Spa Grand Prix, cycling among the dispersing crowds, off to show his mother and father his new trophy." The Mechanics Tale.
Love him or hate him. When he"s gone, we"ll miss him.
