Is Schumacher missed?

Astro Wrote:
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> gav Wrote:
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> He wasn't the most dedicated tester even when he
> was getting the end product.
>
> ROFL! wow buddy you couldnt even buy a clue.

If you'd bothered to pull your head out of his arse you might have noticed that he always (excepting 2006 I think it was) had a prolonged pre-season holiday, turning up only for the roll-out of the new car. I'll bet Luca Badoer has done more laps in a Ferrari than MS has...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2007 10:06AM by gav.

lol what has that got anything to do with him not being a dedicated tester? he was only doing there what any normal human would do - recharge their batteries so he could go win those, oh i dont know, 5 WC's? dont recall badoer having to go do that. i suggest you read one of his autobiographies so that you might be able to pull your head out of the clouds, and figure out just what a dedicated work ethic he had when it came making the car better right down to little details at a test session late into the night. pfft



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2007 10:14AM by Astro.

I never said he didn't put the effort in - he's probably the most dedicated of all F1 drivers in the last 10 years or so... I said he didn't bother testing as much as most drivers - certainly if you look at the percentages (given how many laps Ferrari did <2005). Kimi's never done much do much either. Kimi doesn't do much full-stop. :P

Schumacher went on holiday immediately after the last race of the season, came back for the car launch, did a few laps here and there, again throughout the season - it's as simple as that - he didn't do much testing.

I'm sure this is correct. Its been confirmed certainly by Eddie Irvine that MS was'nt much of a tester. His skill was an uncanny understanding of ultimate feel and grip and an ability to push the team as a whole. He regularly used his teamates setups. Ronnie Peterson did the same.

Race engineers are mostly responsible for setups now anyway.

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Yes true but they still need the feedback - telemetry does'nt do it all.

Thing is they have computers which can do advanced simulations of each track these days, so by the time a team gets to a particular circuit they already know what kind of a set up they need and can just spend the weekend fine tuning.
The hard work of setting up the car is less down to driver and engineer these days than it was even just ten years ago, which is why a young driver like Vettel can just get in the car and drive it quickly almost straight away.