planetf1.com

Was he a dirty driver - No
Did he sometimes do things he shouldn't - Yes
Considering how many years he raced & the number of races he competed in, compared to the number of things that he is remembered for as doing the wrong thing, I personally don't think that he can be considered a dirty driver. Everyone has their own definition of what a dirty driver is but, to me, a dirty driver is one that takes the opportunity in every race they compete in to punt people off & generally do anything they can to win at any cost. Michael didn't do that. Yes, he sometimes lost his head but generally he was just damn good at his job.

Here here

What a strange thing to say. I have said many times that the FIA bears an enormous responsibility for letting young drivers think that anything is allowed, because people like Senna and Schumacher got away with just about anything they felt like doing. As late as Hungary 2010, the driver-steward said it was regrettable that Schumacher's offense came so late in the race, as he wanted to black flag him. That would have been a stronger signal to impressionable youngsters, but they didn't want to reach a verdict without going through the evidence.
When president Balestre and the FISA council tried to make Senna understand that his sportsmanship left a lot to be desired, it was Balestre who was seen as overstepping the mark. And judging by the Senna film, still is. That would be laughable if it weren't so sad.

Believe it or not, but it took me a long time to understand that Schumacher did indeed ram Hill on purpose in 1994. When it happened, I simply could not believe that a driver would put himself and a competitor in danger, simply because he had just thrown the world championship away. I believed it when he did it again in 1997, but it wasn't until some serious footage became available online, that I could see for myself just when he carefully checked his mirrors before his manoeuvres. In fact, that only happened after I became a member of this forum, and a couple of us on here analysed the whole affair. By the way, we also were able to find that he knew Benetton were cheating, and wanted to leave the team for bringing his good name into disrepute. Ironic, I'm sure you'll agree.

Did you know that a week (or 2) before his debut in the Jordan, he decided to teach another driver in sports cars a lesson? That driver had just lost his brother in a motorsport accident... (Indeed, that driver hadn't forgotten about it by Hungary 2010.)
I know about wheel banging in lower formulae. You have to learn the ropes in order to progress. But if you have still not understood that concrete is particularly unyielding at 300km/hr after 15 years in the top echelon of the sport, something is seriously wrong. And that problem doesn't go away by just insulting the victim of your shenanigans.

You say that Senna and Prost were no angels. Yet, Suzuka 1989 apart (when Prost had had enough of Senna's behaviour on track), can you remind me of when Prost's conduct on track was less than sporting?

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Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.

Maria de Villota

Never ever.

Prost's generation was of generally clean, fair racers.

Waiving at marshals furiously in 1986 Monaco gp as he knew senna in the toleman was catching him.

As I'm sure you know Fiki, I'm referring to those incidents where there's discussion over whether the overtaking driver 'went for a disappearing gap' or whether the driver being overtaken should have deviated from their line to allow the other driver to overtake them without going off track.

There have been many such discussions on this forum over various incidents, with some believing the overtaking driver should have realised the 'gap' was never going to be there for their overtake to work, and others believing the car in front should have left room.

Asking if he was a dirty driver today is kind of stupid. Racing is different now. What we now consider dirty was considered a tactic before. Martin Brundle says it best in the Senna movie. Senna would put you in a position that you decided if there would be an accident or not. That's ruthless and as dirty as they come but we love him. Same with Schumi. To accomplish what he did required a lot, there could have been more dirty moments its just part of the sport.

Yes, Fiki, you're right. Sorry about that. One of the things I always admired about Prost was his self control both on the track & off. I should not have included him. That will teach me not to type something in a hurry & to reread what I have typed before I post it

With saying the FIA should have stepped in & stopped drivers thinking they could get away with anything they liked, which I agree with, that would probably have had an effect on Schumacher but do you think that Senna would have taken any notice? He never, to me, seemed to back down because he always thought he was right no matter what. He often argued in driver briefings about the unfairness of decisions etc & could get quite heated about it. I guess that, if he continued his bad sportsmanship, they could have started banning him from taking part in the next race but I am not sure that even that would have stopped him. What are your thoughts?

I too have looked at the footage of the incident between Schumacher & Hill many times & I am still not convinced that it was deliberate & Damon was the 2nd driver I supported at the time, after Michael, so I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that one

And no, I didn't know about the incident you mention that happened in the weeks before his debut with Jordan. I would be interested in learning more.

@Fiki - back to 1988 incident, you know it was unfair for Balestre to disqualify Senna, totally wrong too. loved it back in 88 but if you think about it Balestre was an a$$ and basically handed over the title to Prost on a plate.

now Schumi ... as much as I admired the man, his skills, driving and off-track persona, you can come with any definition of dirty in F1 and probably Schu appears next to it. every driver has his dirty moments but Schu was always ready to go at lengths to overachieve.

I have heard a lot about Balestre & his manipulations, true or not, but the video that has always been a favourite of mine is the one of Senna taking on Balestre during a drivers briefing. The one thing I didn't know, possibly because the internet & Google weren't available then, was that we have Balestre to blame for Max Mosley becoming the head of the FIA & how much they had in common, if this Wikipedia link is accurate , which I hope works as I have never done a link on here before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marie_Balestre

What happened to Lotus?

I remember that episode well. What is unsporting about it? He drew the race director's attention to the fact that conditions were becoming very dangerous (not the marshals, they have no say in any decision to stop the race). That race director was an acknowledged rainmaster, both in F1 and sportscar racing (where he was a world champion). I see nothing unsporting in it; the most courageous man in the history of F1 had lost his 4th title when he decided for himself that Fuji 1976 was too dangerous. Unsporting?

Also, were you aware that , whatever the decision from the race director would be, this cost Prost his 5th world title?

_________________
Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.

Maria de Villota

QED?

_________________
Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.

Maria de Villota

I think Senna would have taken notice of not receiving a superlicence, as Balestre once threatened. It is much harder to throw the rulebook out of the cockpit when you're not allowed in one. True, that would have had two very hard-to-take consequences: it would (for a time at least) have deprived us of the fastest man in F1. And it would have cost F1 a number of fans who will support unsporting behaviour no matter what - possibly these are the kinds of fans non-fans used to talk about in the 70s and 80s when they said we fans were only interested in seeing accidents, blood and death.

This link tells you a little bit about the time he deliberately drove into Warwick's car http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/29895.stm, but a fuller account can be found on the Autosport site: http://plus.autosport.com/premium/feature/4729/
A small excerpt from it, but do read the full sequence if you can:
Contrast Warwick's rage afterwards, with how Schumacher behaved when he ran into the back of Coulthard at Francorchamps 1998, an incident for which Coulthard has accepted his share of the blame, even though it was never his intention to hamper Schumacher. In other words, some Schumacher incidents are accidents, some aren't. Adelaide 1994 wasn't.

_________________
Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.

Maria de Villota

it was a Toleman because it was Monaco 1984 which infamously rewarded Prost only half the points for the win. it's ironic because had Prost let Senna win he would have gotten 6 points instead of 4.5 and would have won the WDC.

I have no idea if Schu did it on purpose back in 1994 as there's no proof whatsoever it was on purpose - maybe in a few years he'll make a confession to it - but I've always thought DC played tricks with MS at Spa 98. he didn't make room for 4 corners in a row (at Spa 4 corners are basically half a lap so to speak) despite blue flags all over the place and then to let him pass choose the worst place of the track with heavy spray on the racing line where basically knew MS had low visibility besides being already frustrated as DC was blocking.
nowadays they'll crucify you for much, much less.

1989 you mean. I think James Hunt gave one reason why Senna should have been disqualified straight away: receiving outside assistance in starting his car - the rule about getting a car away from a dangerous position on the track has been used and abused over the years, also by Schumacher.
I didn't like Balestre any more than you do, but I doubt he basically just handed the title to Prost on a plate. Did he have a casting vote at the Council that heard the McLaren appeal later? He may have, I don't know. But the outcome of that was pretty clear. Why it took Senna another 4 years to really start thinking about safety is beyond me. And whether by then he had made the link between racing according the rules, for the sake of safety and of sportsmanship, I can't tell. I suppose the person most likely to have the answer to that is none other than Alain Prost himself.

_________________
Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.

Maria de Villota

Coulthard didn't choose the place at all; Schumacher had been gesticulating about not being let past. Your point about heavy spray, I agree with, but how much do you think Coulthard could see in his mirrors through that spray? I have always wondered why Schumacher didn't pull left to overtake. (For what it's worth, I wouldn't mind discussing this phase with Coulthard, as the alternative could just as easily have resulted in an accident.)

I think the reason for Schumacher's silence about 1994 is precisely the difficulty of finding proof. * The images we on this forum watched some ten years ago, don't seem to be on Youtube anymore, but from what is there, it is clear enough that Schumacher checks his mirrors before blocking Hill, both times. His statement afterwards that the steering didn't work anymore is clear to be false; how else would he have been able to go for the apex after "choosing the outside" and forcing Hill to switch to the inside?

* Edit: Consider this: If Schumacher truly did not aim to take Hill out of contention after he put himself out, then what stood in the way of an apology?

_________________
Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.

Maria de Villota

Coulthard didn't have to check in his mirrors; he was told on radio that Michael was just behind him

Fiki
No nothing unsporting there just wanted to mention it as I rekin it's the first real battle they had, I do think though Prost might have felt he was going to loose that one if they kept going. IMO prost wasn't as good as senna in the rain.

it was 1989, you're right. senna did the smart thing and stayed in the car, Prost got out as he thought he was already champ. senna was in a dangerous position therefor in need for assistance if I recall correctly. and what about the farce of letting him complete the race instead of blackflag him right after ?!
regarding 1994, what stood in the way of an apology you ask ?! I can give you my 2 cents - a lot of misplaced ego. it was not until the late 90s that Schu started to mutter words of appreciation towards Hill.
as for DC I want to ask you a question: he knew MS was behind - you don't concede the first corner,it happens, not all the backmarkers do, but what about afterwards ?! I need to remind you that he failed to yield position in all the slow corners and moved over, well like I said, on a straight with heavy spray on the racing line. I have no idea what game was playing DC (don't recall if he was in contention or not)

What exactly did you and the other geniuses find?

Schumacher knew about Benetton modifying the fuel filter after not having got the proper permission to do so. This (probably) helped him get out of the Benetton contract a year early, although I'm sure it simply ended up saving Ferrari some money - they would have had him anyway.

The steering worked well enough to take the corner, so it was probably bent suspension. It may well have taken him out of the race depending exactly how badly it was bent. This is something of an unknown.

It's a 90 degree corner. The only way Hill was ever going to go through was if Schumacher yielded, and he didn't. And he would know that.

Coulthard took about as much of the blame as he could without saying "it was my fault guv". He admits he shouldn't have driven the way he did, not that he drove maliciously, but that he drove unwisely.

He wasn't, he was going to be lapped. It would be interesting to hear what Coulthard thought at the time, but looking at the images again, I still can't understand why Schumacher keeps hiding behind Coulthard all the way to Fagnes. That doesn't make sense, as he showed himself earlier on the very short run down to the Virage de Bruxelles (or Rivage if you will). Another thing I find hard to understand is how a car that is 2.1 seconds faster per lap, can't get past on one of the very long straights.

_________________
Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.

Maria de Villota

I've finally figured out the response to the title question...

"Yes."

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"You are the universe expressing itself as a Human for a little while..."

Well, since Schumacher had forced Hill to the inside, that's exactly where he himself should not have gone. And since he did check his mirrors, he knew perfectly well where Hill was. Therefore...

_________________
Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.

Maria de Villota

Aggressive as hell, and I wouldn't want him any other way.

When he let Vettel through in Brazil this year it seriously pissed me off.

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Dirty, dirty you say....Except for 2010 Barrichello i didn't judge any of the incidents puting in danger the life of the other driver.
Instead Grosjean with his clean driving in one season could have kill 2-3 guys more than one time

Yes yes and yea to letting vettel through, wanted Alonso to win so bad as vettel always seems to do better than my favorite mark webber.

Exactly, that's the one move I wouldn't want to see again. One shudders to think what if it had not been Schumacher and Barrichello doing that stunt.

Ohh yea wat if it was grosjean and Maldonado
BANG

I don't recall Grosjean having been accused of causing those accidents on purpose.
Also, if unsporting driving is only dirty if the life of the other driver is in danger, I think we can stop discussing sporting behaviour straightaway.

_________________
Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.

Maria de Villota