Why can’t Schumacher just stay on the track?
Michael Schumacher is a seven times world champion. One of the best drivers the sport has ever seen, racking up record after record, relentlessly consistent in the races, he made everyone else on the grid submit to the inevitable defeat.
He was always a driver who made mistakes, but most of the time these were made in practice as he pushed the limits of the car and found the escape routes at the track should anything go wrong. That’s how well prepared he used to be. Very rarely would he need to use them in the race, because very rarely did he ever make a mistake.
Nowadays of course, in his second career, his pace has slowed slightly, he can barely out qualify Nico Rosberg, and he often likes to use the escape routes he’s found during the races, as well as crunching his front wing against many a driver.
In Germany he spun away what was actually another decent race pace. It’s becoming increasingly frustrating, because if you follow Schumacher’s races his speed is actually pretty good. In fact in the races this year he’s often been faster than Rosberg, but yet he’s unable to prove it.
In Germany he could have finished 6th, in Britain 5th, Valencia he was on for another top 6, all races he eventually finished behind Rosberg. Hungary is this weekend, it would be nice for him to prove to the world that he’s actually not doing that badly if only he’d stay on the track. However, it’s all very well saying he could have but the fact is he hasn’t.
To be fair, not all the incidents are his fault, but he’s certainly far more incident prone than he used to be, but then that is a consequence of his qualifying pace and being further down the grid. He still has a fierce desire to win and the will to never give up. He still makes great moves and takes risks even if it’s just for seventh, he’s the definition of a racer but is that enough anymore?
Is Rosberg doing enough?
Nico Rosberg generally qualifies the car where it should be. He maximises it’s potential on the Saturday but is he doing that all the time on race day? Quite obviously Rosberg has brought much better results for Mercedes. He’s been a safe pair of hands, who is able to bring the car home and last year was especially impressive against the returning champion where he scored three podiums with some impressive driving.
I'm not saying Rosberg doesn't haven't the speed to win because he patently does, but this year has been less spectacular for him. He’s still bringing in the results but I get the impression that he doesn’t quite have what it takes to take him to the next level, to match an Alonso or a Hamilton. His race pace hasn’t been as good Schumacher’s, it’s only the elder German’s desire to risk his front wing insurance so often that has covered this up.
Nico needs to be more aggressive, too often there has been occasions where people have passed him fairly easily, the latest being Felipe Massa in Germany. He’s brought the car home where you’d expect it to be, but as the BBC commentary team pointed out, has he ever out driven his car? Has he ever got a result the car didn’t deserve?
Schumacher’s risk judgement has been shaky but if it had come off he’d arguably have finished higher than Rosberg for the last four races and when you think that Nico is bringing the car back where it should be then that becomes a concern. Nico needs to step up and show us what he can really do because at the moment if Schumacher can finally regain the consistency he once had and put a weekend together without trying to hit someone, people may begin to doubt Rosberg has what it takes for a title shot.
Schumacher also needs to step up and prove he has what it takes to be more controlled and take risks that work, while their team Mercedes needs to provide them with a faster car which would show them both in a much better light anyway. They’ve made progress this year and are optimistic heading to Hungary, let's see if they can finally put a trouble free weekend together.
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