*Random article because I'm bored and was thinking while sitting on the toilet time*
2006: Michael Schumacher retires, by far and away the most successful Formula 1 driver ever
2010: Michael Schumacher returns, still by far and away the most successful Formula 1 driver ever
2012: Michael Schumacher retires, still by far and away the most successful Formula 1 driver ever
The bloke is a colossus. Ignoring the controversies in his career (as frankly I'm struggling to think of a genuinely true gentlemanly champion post the gentlemanly era), he swept everything before him. Despite not having the best car for much of his career, he won the drivers championship 7 times in his 17 full seasons in F1. Seven times. He won races in all but 15 of his 19 seasons. And when he won his final race, according to British law he could have been a grandfather. Even if, by some miracle, I was about to start my career now aged 33, Schumacher had already held aloft 4 drivers trophies, 4 constructors trophies and had won a mere 53 races in what is generally regarded as the highest level of motorsport. If, as many of us do, I was to have landed the dream seat in F1 now, I would have had to have won 39 races to have beaten Schumacher at the same stage in his career, as he won a mere 38 races after his 33rd birthday. To put it another way, irrespective of the controversy which dogged much of his career, the bloke was @#$%& awesome.
And so he retired at the end of 2012 after 19 seasons. 3 seasons after his comeback and old enough to have had a grandchild (a
grandchild), having got on terms with his young, highly-thought-of compariet. The following season, against all expectation, his team stopped fannying about with systems which yielded little relative reward (passive-DRS) and actually produced a car capable of poles, wins and potentially championships. He must be kicking himself right now. Hard (hence the thread title).
We all wondered just how much Schumacher would raise his game should Mercedes give him a car befitting his reputation—many of us would have loved to have seen it too. Had he signed a 4 year contract at Mercedes rather than a 3, we may have found out...
I can't be the only one who wished Hamilton had stayed at McLaren and Schumacher had signed a small extension, can I?
Just for the sake of clarification, as much as I admired the guy, I wanted someone else to beat him every race of every year until his return in 2010, from which point he was the underdog among all of the champions we had and in the worst car of all of the champions. And he still managed to get to the top of the qualifying timesheets and probably would have won, had it not been for his Schumacherness in the previous race (though I still blame Senna to a large degree for that one).
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2013 10:32PM by gav.