Schumi No More!

i`ve been following F1 for quite sometime.... but watching a complete race is something you probably won`t find me doing

well... the teaser says it all about Schumi.... you either hate him or you love him... and that`s precisely why i wouldn`t term him as the greatest sportsman ever... the great F1 driver - without a shadow of doubt...

he`s on par with the likes of armstrong, woods, bradman, pele, agassi, o`sullivan, sampras, jehangir khan, jansher khan... people by whose names their games are known and not vice versa

i really wanted Schumacher to win at Sao Paulo and i actually wanted Alonso to retire (somehow)... i was even wondering if Massa could somehow slam his car into that of Alonso, something that Schumacher infamously did a few years back... but really... Schumacher deserved to win the title given the fight he had put up after being more than 20 points adrift of Alonso... and legends like him should always end up on a high note...

Relentless is the word that comes to mind when I think of him.

Schumacher is a legend, much in the same way as Pele and Maradona are for Soccer, Agassi is to Tennis, and Tiger Woods is to Golf..you don`t realize their greatness till they retire.

Good round-up of his achievement, Ms. Zehra!

That Michael Schumacher was the greatest F-1 driver was put beyond doubt by his final performace.

`Greatest sportsman ever`? Hmmm.. why don`t we settle the question of whether F-1 is even a sport, first? :-)

Re: # 1

Of course it is a sport. `Boxing, bull fighting and motor racing are the only sports, rest are all games`. Hemingway. I will define anything that requires hand-eye co-ordination to play well a sport.

I did some amateur racing a few years back and understand the physics of racing a little. This is where, I think, Schui is incomparable. He can make his car go as if the rules of physics don`t apply to his car. And he does it with divine grace. He can put up lap after lap in the middle of a race as if he is doing a qualifynig lap. And each time his racing line is within a mm of the previous lap. And if you see his control of the steering, it is as if he is driving at 30 miles/hour and not 300. Compare his gentle maneuvering of the steering with, say, see-sawing of Phillipe, who is fast but always seems to be working his pants off. Schumacher always seems as if he is out for a leisurely Sunday drive, such graceful is his control of the car. It seems to do a ballet in his hands, rather than race. As they say, it is not how fast he goes, but how he goes fast.

I will miss him a lot. F1 will take a while before it finds, if it finds him at all, the next Schumacher!