The Official 2011 Turkish GP Thread ***SPOILERS***

Schummi will be out before the end of the season. In comes Di Resta.


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

I would rather see Glock in the Mercedes, actually - I think he deserves another chance in a top team.

I would also like to see Hulkenberg in the Force India race seat this year to get a better marker on Di Resta's ability.

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X (@ed24f1)

glock had his chance in a SUPEEERB toyota in 2009, i still wonder how couldnt glock and trulli (2 very good drivers in my view) score a maiden toyota victroy.

schumacher on the other hand hasnt driven a car good enough even for top 3 since his comeback. let him has the chance , and if by the end of 2011 he doesnt do enything good, i will agree with all the critics about him.

He shouldnt need a chance.

He's a 7 time champ, had a full season, including testing, he should be fully upto speed. He's driving like a rookie again. Turkey was awful. If this was Petrov there would be calls for him to leave. Fact is, right now that 2nd Mercedes seat is being wasted.

He has shown speed, and thats great but he has not yet shown an ability to race in pack. If in 3 or 4 races there is no improvement, Mercedes really need to think about getting di Resta in the car, or someone else.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

right so . he really sucks in the pack... because the pack race without the fear, that they can loose points. and MS races as if he has a guy next to him whoo cares about every single point because they are fighting for the WC. lets be honest. if instead of petrov it was someone, anyone of the top 3 teams, no one would go soo deep in that corner, especially with that little radius to make the turning into the corner.

Rosberg is giving him a beating, hard one.. he seems to have the speed to fight him but he seems to make it very difficult for himself... it's just not working.. is not normal when your teammate never haves a problem and you have them all... it happened with Kimi, it Happend with Montoya... when things are not working in those "top teams seats" they will just sack you.. however i think that Mercedez is still not in a position to make the call immediately... i mean there aren't any obvious choices to seat there.. they might risk even more sitting "future promises"... if Kubica was ok to race he would be a more than an obvious choice and Michael would been gone by Monaco, but the team is not 100% working, even Rosberg suffers in races..

i don't know i think if things contitnue this way he'll still finish the season, but if he doesn't improve he'll deffinitely will be gone by the end of it, no doubt.. even if the guy deserves it, i don't think Brawn or Haugh will just sack him.. probably fake an injury or something, or dimplomatically sack him the way Ferrari did with Kimi..

Nick Heidfeld is another one, he's having problems, yes, but he does shows he can get the job done, he's just not nailing Qualy's, but the guy is fighting, matching his teammate and beating him in races so he's definitely not on the same"league"... i would say the problem is just consistency, the same as it was last year, he just not consistent enough, in practice you can make 3 or 4 hot laps even if you're not consistent enough you'll end up with a good time after many attemps... if you have the speed which he definitely has.. but he's not consistent enough and it shows easy in Qualy.

mitadumapaga Wrote:
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> right so . he really sucks in the pack...
> because the pack race without the fear, that they
> can loose points. and MS races as if he has a guy
> next to him whoo cares about every single point
> because they are fighting for the WC. lets be
> honest. if instead of petrov it was someone,
> anyone of the top 3 teams, no one would go soo
> deep in that corner, especially with that little
> radius to make the turning into the corner.


yes, Petrov move was never going to work (asian style) but i don't think that has anything to do with it... people race him hard because they want something to prove and what a better way than to do it than with Michael... still even if he makes mistakes he should be in a position to make him and not be critized for them, but he is because of his low performances... Hamilton for example, made a totally rookie mistake trying to win the race from Webber in T3... it probably cost him a lot more probably the podium, but he still haves the speed and he's been performing good in the last couple of races so for sure he won't be as critized as a guy the guy that is not perfoming as he should and is even an easier target as he has 7wdc

He won't get sacked. He'll be the one who walks away, and judging by the interviews coming out of Turkey, it won't be very long. No-one they can bring in will be able to do better than he is doing. We saw what Fisichella was like in 2009 when he switched teams. If he was to be replaced, they'd still be tenths off of Rosberg.

Still, if he does move on, for potential replacements, I can't see beyond Hulkenberg or Glock myself.

I generally defended Schumacher's pace last year - he had genuine excuses, and not necessarily unfairly. But it's a new season and he's still not moved on. He's still tenths of a second off of Rosberg (let's face it, Istanbul was a one-off). If the pace hasn't returned after a season and a bit, then it's not going to return in the rest of the season.

1 question... is schumachers time from saturday FP 3 (which was only .001 fropm vettels best) a good barometer for his speed. or was he with completely other tyres, fuel etc setups ??

Whats worse about the whole MS thing is that Nico will receive little recognition.

It will mostly be, 'Schumacher isnt what he used to be', not 'Nico's quick!!' and thats a great shame. Im sure most experts will recognize the great job Nico is doing, but I hope so do the fans. He's the first decent team mate Schumacher has had that has been allowed to fight fare with him, and frankly Nico is destroying him. If this was a rookie, then Nico would be making sure this guy never get into an f1 seat again. I am probably slightly biased, I am a huge Nico fan (who isnt, he's awesome!) but I hate that the common thought will remain that he is above average, and thats it. And that he's only beat Schumacher because of his age, time away.

I hope Mercedes carry on the improvement, if not then Nico has to be top of Ferraris and RBR's list to replace Massa/Webber. Though im sure Alonso would veto the idea of Nico being with him , and at least Vettel has enough respect to accept the challenge im sure.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

gav Wrote:
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> If the pace hasn't returned after a season and a
> bit, then it's not going to return in the rest of
> the season.

Agree, Schumi just doesn't have it right now. I'm not sure if the pace has actually left him or his style just doesn't suit the new rules, after all he was never easy on tires and refueling strategy was always a big part of his success. But he's not even close to Nico lately.

Thing is, because MS is trying to cut it in F1 again after so long away, I don't think it should be seen simply as him not being what he used to be. He came back into F1 after a very long time away(Longer than any other driver who'd returned after retiring except Alan Jones, as far as I know) and the sport had changed massively in the time he'd been away too. Also he'd been well out of practice during that time - one time he went for nearly 18 months without even driving an F1 car. He's also made his comeback in the worst possible circumstances regarding his traditional strengths and weaknesses(New team, lack of continuity, difficult car last year at least, strong teammate, being in the pack due to car's lack of pace).
It should be noted that drivers who have come back after years away have tended to be shadows of their former selves. Alan Jones is one example, and I think Schumacher will get lumped with him if he doesn't improve. Also, Prost wasn't the same driver in '93 as he'd been before his first retirement; It was mainly masked by the fact he was in a vastly superior car with an average rookie as his teammate, but still the signs were there. If he'd made his comeback with Ligier or Ferrari rather than Williams, I doubt he'd have done any better in terms of race results than MS has with Mercedes.

So, although I'm disappointed by Schumacher's lack of form and genuinely expected him to do better, looking at it in the cold light of day I guess it's understandable if he doesn't improve from here.

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I think he is a victim of comeback syndrome - can anyone name a driver that has returned, in the last 25 years, from a sabbatical of more than a year, and been as competitive?

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Luca Badoo o o oh hhh no maybe not...


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

can anyone name a driver in the last 25 years with 7 titles, 91 wins, 66 poles (or 67), 8 wins at one circuit and not being called MS ??

he has to deliver because he is not everyone else, he is Michel Schumacher.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2011 02:06PM by mitadumapaga.

mitadumapaga Wrote:
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> can anyone name a driver in the last 25 years
> with 7 titles, 91 wins, 66 poles (or 67), 8 wins
> at one circuit and not being called MS ??
>
> he has to deliver because he is not everyone else,
> he is Michel Schumacher.

I don't really see your point. Are you suggesting that he is still as good as he was, simply because he is Michael Schumacher? If so, I'm afraid that the facts aren't on your site at the moment.

I would like to see him back to his former glory, but the kind of racing we've seen this season is exactly the kind of racing that Schumacher always used to struggle with. EC83's list of previous examples speaks volumes, and I'd like to add Spa '95 to the list

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Maybe as Herbert says MS is as good as he was back in the day just everyone now is better Even in his last year at Ferrari Massa had the pace of him in a good number of races and RB on his day could beat MS.

So yeah without doing millions of test miles and not having a car and tyres built just for him he is being shown to be at this level?

I really do not know why people thought he would come back and blow everyone away, a good number of us said he would strugle and that it what has happened. His race pace is fine but his 1 lap pace is off and due to that he starts to far back and he cannot race just like in the past.

Tbh I just think he is past it and was silly to come back after such a long break to team that got lucky once.

senninho Wrote:
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> I think he is a victim of comeback syndrome - can
> anyone name a driver that has returned, in the
> last 25 years, from a sabbatical of more than a
> year, and been as competitive?

There's only ever been 1 driver that fits into that scenario and that was Niki Lauda. The next driver up from that is Prost being out for a year, but he did return to easily the best car on the grid and a rookie teammate.

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i don't know i saw him race in his best days, he is deffinitely not as good as he was back then... i don't know why Herbert would just say that... he was a phenomenom, and even Vettel at his best was not that convincing as Michael back then he would have nothing on Michael lol

i would love to see Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso, Rosberg and those guys racing when they're 42 to see how good they perform, or even take a 3 year break and come back... even Villeneuve who took a forced 6 months break was struggling when he came back... 3 years is a lot!.... i really doubt he's on that level, no way.. it makes more sense to think that he's just bitter Michael wipe the floor with his face when they where driving the same car

because herbert is moroon, and jelaousing as well. If you look close at it, the only people who said schumi will retire are: villeneuve last year, herbbert now and coulthard. all of themgetting their asses kicked from schumi. Yes, some would say that coulthard is objective and honest, (i agreee) but there is just something in him that wants michael not to be succesfull and this is the fact that coulthard (and the other 2 as well) was what ?? Correct.---> absolutely helpless against schumi in 2001,2003 etc. Has someone heard brundle, or hakkinnen or massa or lauda or anybody... who doesnt have problems with schumi to say : "yes he is sooo weak, so pathetic he has to retire" ?