In reality, putting aside all preconceptions and subjectivity, and looking at the question of who has been the greatest F1 driver of all time from a purely objective basis, Michael Schumacher should really top literally everyone's personal lists. To consider anyone else above him would be an act of folly. But as we know, the title of "F1's greatest driver" needs to be bestowed on someone who is more than just a statistical leviathan. The word "great" doesn't necessarily simply equate to "success", as we all know. After all, you might consider yourself to be a "great" drinker, but there's nothing particularly successful about lying slumped in a gutter after a dipsomaniacal gin session.
And Schumacher's seemingly-assured position at the top of any fun-but-also-completely-meaningless ordering of F1's stars from past and present will always be under threat because in amongst all of the triumphs and glory lurks a number of mitigating factors that drive down the overall view of the man. Mould Michael Schumacher's career into the shape of a vision of beauty, and you'd have to add a few unsightly boils on their face for the complete look.
You, of course, know what I'm alluding to, the oft-spoken rulebook that is F1's own set of Godwin's laws. Memories of Adelaide '94, Jerez '97, Austria '02, Silverstone '03, Monaco '06 and the like will always permeate around the glittering trophy room of F1's most successful man like rotten hungover guffs on a crowded commuter train. How can you call someone the greatest, you might ask, when he committed such preconditioned atrocities on the racetrack? Well, seeing as we at PatroniseF1 like nothing better than to play a spot of devil's advocate every now and again, let's try and put aside the desire to throw on our fan-rant leather gloves and try to objectively ask whether all of this unpleasantness is really the hindrance to Schumacher's standing in the sport that it is currently seen as.
In all fairness, you'd have to be the thickest hand-wringer in the debating society to find it too difficult to try and justify Schumacher's dirtier moments, providing you bear in mind two small, but very important facts. Firstly, that within just about every one of F1's greats, there was a similar ruthless streak to the one that drove Schumacher past the limits of agreed conduct. And secondly, that Schumacher's main contribution to the evolution of the F1 driver was his ability to take every facet of a motor racing driver's traits to the absolute limit, be it dizzying levels of speed, a punishing commitment to training, or, inevitably, a ruthless attitude to on-track behaviour.
On that first point, there's an obvious counter-punch that can be thrown back in the sweaty features of the pro-Schumie argument right from the start. Fangio, Clark and the like never engaged in wheel-banging, or opponent-tagging to get ahead during their eras of domination. And of course, it is true that they would never have even considered such maneuvers. But not necessarily out of a desire to always do the right thing, in a mission to have a career path as sickeningly saccharine as a Scrubs voiceover, but more that barging about on track was never really an option for them, because a wheel-locking crash in a 1960's-era F1 car would likely mean serious injury, or worse. It's hard to conclusively say that anyone from that far back in F1's dim and distant past was "greater" than Schumacher in that respect, because they were never given a realistic chance to prove their greatness.
But by the time Schumacher entered the sport, safety levels had increased by some distance, and the undisputed driver's driver was Ayrton Senna, a man who already displayed an obsessive attention to his fitness and driving, and one who had shown on more than one occasion that he was happy to risk the odd professional foul if it furthered his title ambitions. So, naturally, when Schumacher sought to emulate Senna, he chose to go the whole hog. The Brazilian genius had unwittingly paved the way for Schumacher to up the ante in the "how far do you push it" stakes. In the pursuit of titles, all manner of swerving, colliding and team order-mongery was acceptable, if it served the greater good. If Senna set the general rules of the current trends in F1 fashion, then Schumacher well and truly Russell Brand-ed it, taking every facet of the single-minded drive for F1 glory to it's frizzy-haired, skinny-jeansed, pointy-shoed limits.
It is worth remembering at this point that Schumacher was not getting up to mischief in every race. Of the 249 races he started during what will probably now be referred to as "phase one" of his career, the number of races where he went beyond the line of accepted/acceptable behaviour could be counted on a couple of hands at most. To hear some people talk about him, you'd be forgiven for not wondering why the FIA didn't have him up on war crimes charges, but the fact remains that for every single moment of dubiousness, there were any number of far less divisive, and far more mesmeric drives.
But enough about all that, to try and defend Schumacher's debatable F1 moments takes more than simply arbitrarily waving excuses and presumptions around the internet. We're not arguing against him, after all. So, the lumbering elephant in the room must also be addressed as well. After all, an argument of "other drivers might have done it as well" doesn't really do enough (or indeed anything) to defend the fact that one driver certainly did do it.
The skullduggery generally fell into two categories. The first bunch of incidents, the Austria 2001 and 2002 'unpleasantness' and various other team order moves were not really down to him, but the singularly Schumacher-opic Ferrari backroom staff. While the German might have indirectly caused these by so galvanising the team around him and him alone, he didn't really directly cause the problem. Full-blooded anti-Schumie moaners will doubtless insist that Schumacher could simply not have passed Barrichello when he moved over, or told the pit wall plotters that he didn't want the order to go through, but in reality, when has any driver ever gone against their team's orders? Perhaps the only incident on record was Luigi Musso refused to hand his car to Juan Manuel Fangio at the 1956 Italian GP, and is ironically seen as one of the least sporting moments in F1 history. It seems that sometimes you really cannot win.
The other category of incidents, though, is the really divisive lot. The swipe at Villeneuve in Jerez or the chop across the bows of Alonso at Silverstone were instinctive, desperate moves, conducted by Schumacher and Schumacher alone. These were spur-of-the-moment spasms from the very depths of Schumacher's single-minded lust for glory, and they really can't be excused. Or can they? Well, possibly not. But they were what they were. Final attempts to stave off failure at any cost.
In the end, these incidents come down to everyone's own personal limits of right and wrong. Fans may endlessly criticise Schumacher for his indiscretions, but that is simply part of his psyche. Take away the bad moments when he has overstepped the mark, and you would have to take away ther flip side of that. The mesmeric wet weather performances, the millisecond-perfect increase in lap times when his pit strategy demanded it. Schumacher is what he is, which is a step beyond in every single category for a Formula One driver.
It is for that reason that he should really be remembered as the greatest F1 driver ever, but of course it is for this reason that he possibly never will be. Still, it makes for a good argument, doesn't it.
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But it really isn't just the ruthlessness, it's the lying . I was never much of a Schumi fan, but Monaco 2006 sealed it all for me. Had Schumacher after qualifying apologized for parking in Rascasse and said it was a spur of the moment decision that he regretted...well, I think he could have gone out with some dignity and then arguing against him would have been as difficult as you make it out to be.
You might argue that we cannot know that he lied, that maybe he was honestly telling his side of the story. Actually, there was one very strong indicator of lying in his waffling defense. When a person is being interrogated by police and denies knowledge of an event, it's very common that they also claim not to know things that aren't actually incriminating to them.
This happens because their entire line of defense is built on denial of things they are fully aware of and when they're a little stressed, it's very easy to also happen to deny knowledge of very obvious things that wouldn't incriminate them at all.
In the press conference Schumacher said something like "that corner...I think it is called Rascasse". Right. Show me one F1 driver who doesn't know the name of every corner in Monaco, not least the one named after the restaurant that sits in its inside corner. So, he may be a cheat - which is bad enough - but he is also a liar who won't even own up to, much less apologize for his actions.
He could easily have been an unassailable and untainted five-time champion (losing his 1994 and 2003 crowns for deliberately hitting Hill and being illegally pushed back on track at the Nürburgring, respectively), but instead he is a deeply flawed seven-time champion. For pure skill? Yes, he may be the best. But for anyone with any sense of fair play and honesty, that simply shouldn't be enough.
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