Why Schumacher's not done yet

Skimming through the headlines in the days after the Istanbul race, you could have been forgiven for thinking that Michael Schumacher had actually thrown in the towel on his Formula 1 return.

His use of those two words - 'big joy' - to describe what he wasn't getting from F1 right now were pored over, rehashed, spun around and turned into a million stories declaring that his time was up.

And for those peddling that view, there had appeared to be little evidence in the 58 laps of the Turkish Grand Prix to suggest that the seven-time champion was anything other than a man no longer performing at the top of his game.

His race effectively finished early on when he clashed with Vitaly Petrov, Schumacher found himself turned into a big silver target for the rest of the afternoon - as television replays showed collisions and wheel-banging with the likes of Rubens Barrichello, Kamui Kobayashi, Adrian Sutil and Felipe Massa.

Yet in this modern world of F1 that is shaped by Pirelli and DRS, it is important to step back a little bit from the television images and take a bit of time to dwell what is actually going out there on track.

Yes, it is fantastic entertainment seeing cars going three-abreast into corners, banging wheels, passing on entry and then re-passing each other on the apex again. Yes sometimes these battles are not strictly for position come the end of the race.

Mark Webber has remarked that a lot of the overtaking moves being seen in F1 are not 'racing' as such -just cars passing each other because of the way the tyres are behaving. The guy in front is powerless to defend so just lets his rival pass.

There was no 'big joy' for Schumacher in Turkey © LAT

Such moves are not real - for a driver that has fresh soft tyres that are five seconds per lap quicker than a car ahead on older, harder rubber, are not really 'racing' each other in the same way that the heroes of the past battled it out wheel-to-wheel for glory.

The varied strategies - especially when we have four-stops like in Turkey - mean that drivers are being shuffled around the order like never before. And for a lot of drivers their move up the order are now merely the execution of a tyre strategy, not a brilliant charge through the field like we saw with Ayrton Senna at Suzuka in 1988, Nigel Mansell at Hungary in 1989, or Kimi Raikkonen at Suzuka in 2005.

With so many moves taking place throughout a race, it is important to distinguish those passes that are just an execution of strategy, as opposed to the overtaking moves that are a genuine one for position between drivers that are battling it out properly for a result.

And that is what it was like with Schumacher in Turkey. For while the television pictures seemed to portray him as a man sliding further and further down the order, actually very few of his losses were against his 'real' opposition.

In fact, it is only by looking at his performance in a bit more detail can you understand that what looked like a disaster of Sunday was actually an afternoon that had plenty of promise about it: which is probably what made it so frustrating for him.

There is no dispute that Schumacher could have done better to avoid getting his wing taken off when Petrov dived up the inside at Turn 12 - but from then on the facts point towards a drive that put him on a par with the fellow three-stopper Jenson Button in the McLaren.

Here is the raw data

After the pitstop for a new nose, Schumacher was 27.7s behind his McLaren rival - having lost 3s on his inlap to fix the nose and another 25s for the stop and the outlap.

With the benefit of marginally better rubber, Schumacher quietly set about closing the gap on Button throughout that first stint - closing the gap down to 20s despite finding himself battling in traffic that Button did not have to counter.

Collision with Petrov damaged his wing © LAT

That midfield mayhem meant the gap between them had stretched out to 29s after their final stops, but then Schumacher pushed on again and - despite losing time in his late battle with Felipe Massa that included him running wide at Turn 1 - Schumacher closed the gap to Button down to 26s by the chequered flag.

So, over the course of the race, and compared against the one front-runner who had elected for pretty much the same strategy - Schumacher had done his race quicker than Button.

Yes, you can argue that Schumacher had the benefit of slightly fresher rubber during his stints, but you then need to counter that with the fact that Schumacher faced much more of the midfield mayhem than Button did at the front.

Sure the 12th place is nothing to be hugely proud about - and it certainly would have brought 'no big joy' - but to say his afternoon was an embarrassment to his legacy is hugely wide of the mark.

And if you look at his season so far, you have to understand that there hasn't been much to smile about because Schumacher has not had the rub of the green.

The DRS problems that Mercedes GP had early on seemed to affect him more than his team-mate Nico Rosberg. From what I hear, Schumacher had a bigger mountain to climb in having the confidence to commit to corners without knowing whether or not the airflow had reattached fully to the rear wing. That's no real surprise for a man who is at a different stage of his life and career to young team-mate Rosberg.

Then in China, when the team seemed to have got on top of the DRS issues, guess who it was that had the wing problem happen at exactly the wrong time in Q2?

In Turkey, Schumacher seemed more confident through practice - he was certainly committed with the numbers of spins he had in practice - but it failed to happen for him in Q3 for reasons that he could not explain at the time.

This is not to suggest that circumstances explain all about why Schumacher has not delivered so far this year - because even he will concede that he is not the same driver he was when he was racking up win after win for Ferrari.

Schumacher's not over the hill yet © LAT

Even though he is not in the hunt for victory and is enduring frustrations like Turkey, don't believe for a second that Schumacher is ready to walk from the sport just because from the outside he appeared to have had a nightmare Turkish GP - and he muttered a great soundbite after the race.

For a man who has won seven world titles and 91 grands prix, battling for anything less than victories or podiums is not going to bring him 'big joy.'

But that doesn't mean he is not getting his kicks out of F1; it doesn't mean he is not committed to getting Mercedes GP right up there, and it doesn't mean that he is not capable of delivering when things finally do click together.

And it only when that happens will we see what 'big joy' really means for the 2011-spec Michael Schumacher. He is not finished yet.