Dodgy Business

I suspect that, personally speaking, Interlagos '06 is going to feel just like Adelaide '93.

Michael Schumacher. Where to start?

I'd known Bertrand Gachot pretty well since the mid eighties. He'd been responsible for near heart failure on a Staines street one day when the scream of a tortured engine gave way to tyre squeal and Bert hand-braked an Alfa 33 to a stop about six inches from where I stood. I dropped my king-size bag of cat litter, which spilled all over the road, to his great amusement.

He could be engaging and ever so slightly unhinged, all at the same time. I wasn't at all surprised that he'd cut up a London cabbie, nor that he'd emptied a canister of CS gas into the face of the hacked off Eric Court. But I was as shocked as Bertrand when the judge decreed that he should spend 18 months at the pleasure of HM the Q. Which opened the door at Jordan for M. Schumacher.

The sportscar crowd already knew about Michael. There were stories about the Merc boys trying to calm him down when he lapped Le Mans six seconds quicker than Jochen Mass in the same car. About them trying to explain that the race was 24 hours, not 24 seconds, and Michael replying that he hadn't really been trying and could drive like that for 24 weeks. Poor Jochen's thoughts were not recorded.

The same week as the Gachot furore, Derek Warwick needed restraining when he wanted to tear Michael limb from limb. Schuey was trying to eke a second Nurburgring qualifying lap out of a set of tyres when Del Boy, on his warm-up lap, inadvertently held him up. Michael's frustrated response was to pull across and side-swipe the Jag's nose as he went by, damaging both cars.

Schumacher first tested a Jordan at Silverstone on an August Tuesday in '91, as Autosport was closing for press. I remember calling Eddie Jordan that afternoon.

"Jayzuz!" he said. "This boy's a bit special. You wouldn't believe it. Straight away he was almost as quick as we've ever been around here. Trevor (Foster) thought he'd better calm him down but he said he wasn't even pushing!"

I remember cynically thinking, 'yeah, yeah, sounds like EJ's probably short of a few bucks to put Michael in the car at Spa.'

Schuey's manager Willi Weber had lied to Jordan. Well, perhaps he hadn't. Jordan probably phrased the question: has Michael been around Spa? To which the answer was yes. Willi just didn't let on that it had been on a bicycle!

Andrea de Cesaris went to Spa after a decent test at Monza, hoping for a good show. Instead, he had his brain scrambled when the rookie Schumacher qualified seventh, 0.7 seconds quicker and four slots further up the grid.

Predictably the vultures swooped, it all turned highly political and, a fortnight later, Michael had replaced Roberto Moreno at Benetton, where he had been signed to a long-term contract.

He was driving alongside Nelson Piquet, a three-time world champion now into his 13th full season in Formula One. It turned out to be his last. Nelson was stunned by Michael's qualifying speed and, given his inexperience, didn't understand from whence it came.

At Monza, Estoril, Barcelona and Suzuka, Michael was 0.4 seconds quicker on average. Only Adelaide remained. Pat Symonds remembers Nelson being so determined to outqualify Michael that he abandoned working on a race set-up altogether. Nelson beat Michael by a couple of tenths.

"He was absolutely jubilant," Symonds remembers, "And Michael just stood there with a strange grin on his face."

"What's the matter?" Nelson asked.

"Oh nothing. Just missed a gear and went a bit off-line," Michael said.

Piquet thought Schumacher was winding him up but Symonds had a peek at the telemetry and confirmed it was true.

"How much did it cost him?" Piquet asked.

Symonds hadn't the heart to tell him. "You just don't want to know," he said.

Racing with Senna

I've got to admit that Ayrton Senna had always been a bit of a hero figure to me, as well as countless millions of others. Obviously there were those that questioned the ethics and ruthlessness, just as there would be with Michael in time, but he had an aura.

There was no question that Ayrton was The Man. But, with Michael's emergence, there was no doubt either that he would not have things his own way.

In Autosport only last week, Martin Brundle, Schumacher's teammate in 1992, spoke of his extraordinary self-confidence for a man of 23, about the willingness to argue a point with those infinitely more experienced, even when he was wrong.

Coincidentally it was 1992, Michael's first full season, when I started to cover F1. In South Africa, race one, Nigel Mansell destroyed the field. Or, rather, the Williams FW14B did. I asked Senna, the reigning champion, what he thought about finishing 35 seconds behind Mansell, and whether it was an insurmountable gap to address over the season.

His reply, predictably, was that there was very little he could do. The ability to bridge the gap, he said, would depend on the new McLaren, as yet unraced.

At Interlagos, Ayrton's home track, out came the McLaren MP4/7. It was not the answer. In fact, as the Williams pair disappeared, Ayrton was left trying to fend off Michael's Benetton. He couldn't. Michael finished third.

At the press conference, in Sao Paulo remember, Michael mentioned how unimpressed he'd been with Ayrton. He'd actually passed him on the front straight eight laps in, whereupon Senna slipstreamed back past him on the back straight.

"I was quicker than him and for the first 10 laps he was going as fast as he could," Michael said. "But after that he was playing some sort of game, braking in the slow corners and making it very difficult. Not the kind of driving I expected from a three-time champion, to be honest..."

Senna-bating in Brazil. Wise? Michael didn't care. It was already obvious that nobody held any fears for him, Ayrton included. With Alain Prost having a sabbatical after getting the boot from Ferrari when he described their car in the terms of a London bus, the Frenchman was an obvious target for any decent team. Someone asked Tom Walkinshaw if Benetton was interested.

"Why would I be interested in Prost when I've got Schumacher?" Tom replied.

The journalist smiled, assuming Walkinshaw was being evasive.

"I don't know why you're smiling," Tom added. "I've never been more serious in my life. I'm quite satisfied I've got the quickest driver in F1."

By the beginning of '94 the rest of the world knew what Benetton knew in '92. But Ayrton was in the Williams by then and, given the team's record over the previous two seasons, we had to be looking at the biggest yawn known to man. Mansell had cantered to the title with Williams in '92, Prost in '93, and now came Senna. This, surely, wasn't anything approaching a contest. This was Ali versus Richard Dunn.

I'll always remember Brazil '94, round one. It was my first season covering F1 for Autosport. Pre-season testing revealed that with active ride and many of the gizmos that accounted for the Williams superiority gone, the FW16 was not the user-friendly tool that Ayrton had been expecting.

He took pole in Sao Paulo but only just and, as refuelling returned to F1 for the first time in more than a decade, Michael jumped him when they both stopped on lap 21. The Benetton then drove steadily away. After the second stop the gap was nine seconds. Finally, Ayrton spun. This had not been in the script.

In among all the action, Brundle's McLaren had thrown a flywheel on the back straight. Eric Bernard, following in a Ligier, backed off, catching unaware Eddie Irvine, whose Jordan was tucked under the Frenchman's wing. Eddie instinctively jinked left on to a piece of track already occupied by Jos Verstappen. The Dutchman's Benetton was launched into a sickening series of rolls.

The stewards decided it was Irvine's fault and banned him for a race, somewhat harshly in view of the fact that the drivers, to a man, put it down to a racing accident.

I remember distinctly sitting on the 747 on the way home that night, writing the weekend's news. Suddenly Irvine came and plonked himself on the seat next to me and, for a few seconds, started reading what I had on the screen.

I'd already spoken to him about the shunt and he wasn't that bothered what I was writing. All he could talk about was the difference between Schumacher's Benetton and Senna's Williams when they lapped him.

"That Benetton seemed like it was glued to the track," he said. "And Senna was bucking all over the road by comparison. I think Michael was about five seconds up the road when Senna passed me, but how Ayrton was anywhere near him, I'll never know..."

Bear in mind that this was just Irvine's third race and his first had ended with him being punched by Senna. He had no good reason to be talking up Ayrton's race. Quite the opposite, in fact. But Irvine wasn't like that. He called things as he saw them, and this had obviously made a big impression.

All About the Car

Of course, Imola was a little more than a month away, and the '94 season became the most tragic and politically charged that anyone can recall, before or since.

There were all the doubts about Benetton's 'option 13' launch control, not to mention traction control. Launch control was still in the car's software analysed after the San Marino race. Benetton argued that it was easier to disable the banned driver aids than it was to rewrite the software and risk errors.

In the aftermath of Senna's death, Damon Hill emerged as a championship contender in a manner that few believed he could. Williams had improved the FW16 and, after Schumacher was effectively removed from 25 percent of the championship after a disqualification and a two-race race ban for ignoring a black flag at Silverstone, and a 'plank' infringement at Spa, it all went down to the wire.

The paddock atmosphere that year was pretty poisonous. And it was at the French GP, when Michael blasted past the Hill/Mansell Williams-Renault V10s off the grid with his Ford Zetec-R V8, that more than one of the technical men started telling me that the press needed to do something about it. Urgently.

The implication was clear. They believed that traction control was still in use in F1. Would they go on the record about their accusations and offer any evidence? And, more than that, be prepared to stand up in a court of law? No dice.

Some even suggested the powers-that-be, faced with having to promote a championship in which Senna would likely win all the races, were actually none too disappointed with the somewhat surprising fleetness of Schumacher's Benetton. Did I understand? Yes, of course I did. And what, precisely, was I supposed to do about it?

Michael, by that stage, had driven for three seasons. In just about every session or every race for 50 events, his times had been blindingly quick. He was always there. He never had an off day. That has an effect. You can't fail to realise you are watching someone special.

And so you have to take a view. If something is undermining his achievements, do you write him off? Many, in '94, did just that. Or, do you ask yourself a) are the accusations true?; b) what's really behind them?; c) if you do believe them, is Michael truly in a position to influence things?; and d) do they account, wholly, for his superiority?

Adelaide, of course, didn't help. But I came away from Australia satisfied that in view of all the year's events, the right driver - Michael - and the right team - Williams - had won the titles.

Schumacher had driven brilliantly in '94 and then suddenly he was under attack from all sides. The fuel filter issue muddied the waters still further, until Benetton employed George Carman, pleaded guilty and got out of jail, pending some 'management changes.' It was interesting that Schumacher took the opportunity to renegotiate his contract, due to run until the end of '96, so that it expired a year earlier.

When Schumacher joined Ferrari they weren't ready for him. How he won three races in the '96 car nobody will ever know, especially Irvine, the man in the other one. In Barcelona that year he was outstanding. OK, he had a spare car with a full wet set-up, but that's like saying Tiger Woods has a graphite driver. There's still a bit to do.

I remember going to Mugello that year to interview Michael. It struck me how the mechanics were almost in awe of the man. Irvine, by contrast, was just there. It was June and they still hadn't got around to making the guy a decent seat.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Eddie said when I arrived at around 11am. "You're going to be here a good while. He doesn't stop running till about 8pm. Or whenever it gets dark." He wasn't wrong.

About nine hours later, Michael finally stepped out of the Ferrari. And headed for a debrief. I think it was about 9pm when he emerged and apologised. He got someone to drive my hire car back to his hotel while I jumped in alongside him and did the interview as he drove.

I've always believed that the world champion should be a special driver, not a man who happens across the best car. Granted, good drivers tend to find themselves in good cars, but I hate to see someone who is so obviously better, constantly thwarted, even if it is a fact of motor racing life.

To me, therefore, it's a bit of a travesty when someone comes straight into F1 in the best car and wins. It's like they've become the boss without serving an apprenticeship. And, yes, I know that happens in life too...

I would have felt like that if Hill had won in '94, despite the fact that he had obviously risen to a level where he was clearly very good. But he wasn't Michael.

Of course, many people didn't want to know that. The popular British perception of Schumacher was fashioned by the endless screeds of pulp fiction served up by the tabloids. The Horrible Hun undermining fine, upstanding Damon. And it obviously sold papers as well as helping Fleet Street's latest meal ticket.

But, to me, readers of the specialist press deserved better. I didn't care if it might not be popular with the people who pick up random mags at railway station Smiths kiosks - I wanted people to know that Schumacher, like Senna before him, was in a different league. And sod his nationality. Everyone knows that now, of course, but it was hard trying to put it across in '94.

I felt the same about Jacques Villeneuve. His father, who I revered like Senna when I was a teenager, never had a car worthy of him. But Jacques walked straight into Williams on the back of IndyCar success with a strong one-car team. To have him come along and beat a guy who had performed to Schumacher's level over the past five years, was difficult too.

Which is why I felt prepared to defend Michael over Jerez '97. I'm not saying I would have done so in any circumstance, but in those particular circumstances, yes.

In Defence of Jerez

Sure, he turned into Villeneuve. But put it into context. You've fought out 17 races on five continents over the past seven months and it's come down to the last 20 laps. The final pitstops have been made and there's one stint to go. The world championship is at stake. Everyone knows how difficult it is to pass in Formula One. It simply isn't going to happen without a robust move.

Villeneuve, all credit to him, pulled it off. If Schumacher had given him room, it's highly doubtful that JV would have made it by without contact with the Ferrari. Schumacher initially claimed that Jacques tried to use him as a brake. That was laughed out of court by the majority in the pressroom when in-car footage showed Michael deliberately turning right into the Williams.

But why was it such a surprise that Schumacher did that? Anyone who has driven at a basic level - karting, Formula Ford - knows that if someone muscles up your inside, going too quickly, and hits you, you are the one who goes off, or at least gets a load of muck on your tyres while the other guy stays on. That's why people close the door.

OK, the anti-Schumacher lobby will say, if Michael thought Jacques wasn't going to make the corner, why didn't he jink left instead of right and allow the Williams to outbrake itself and go off on the outside?

That's no doubt what he wishes he'd done but, faced with such a late move and caught by surprise, Schumacher tried to have the contact at a point that compromised him least and Villeneuve most. Entirely natural, I'd have said. But of course, when he tried to point out that he'd reacted naturally, his detractors said, rather cheaply, that it was because his natural instinct was foul play.

Remember, he still came off second best - ended up losing after another mighty effort. Villeneuve won the day. So why was he so badly vilified? What was he supposed to do? Roll over? Jos Verstappen might have been Michael's mate but at least he had the decency to say that, in the same situation, he reckoned more than 50 percent of the grid would have behaved in the same way.

The stuff afterwards, stripping Michael of his second place in the championship but not taking any wins away... what was all that about? Total nonsense. A reaction, it seemed, to popular opinion, much of it forged by people who didn't understand what they were seeing anyway.

Michael, of course, was an easy target and most people made hay. Schumacher's mistake, to my mind, was not articulating it properly in the aftermath. Perhaps the disappointment was too raw. Perhaps he sensed the mood. Whatever. But it wasn't as bad as it was painted. Seventy miles an hour, second gear, championship at stake, do me a favour...

Don't get the wrong idea. I'm not trying to portray Schumacher as a saint. You did occasionally see things that were highly dubious. At Spa in 2000, with the championship again at a crucial stage, he moved over on Mika Hakkinen at almost 200mph and we were a whisker away from what would have been an aircraft accident. The sheer fury was the catalyst behind Mika's unforgettable overtaking move on the very next lap.

You can only imagine how scary moments like that must be at 200mph. The euphoria of the win no doubt helped but you could have forgiven Mika if he'd tried to punch Michael into the middle of next week. In the collecting area, Hakkinen, calmly - somehow - tapped Schumacher on the shoulder, made some very clear, precise hand movements simulating the track positions of their respective cars, and wagged a warning finger. Michael, who always had healthy respect for Mika, looked a bit sheepish and nodded in agreement. He knew. Mika patted him on the back and walked away, point made.

Post-Hakkinen, the Ferrari title years were more comfortable for Michael as it never quite came together for Kimi Raikkonen at McLaren. Then came Alonso and Renault, the hardship of last year and the great challenge of this. We were back to the mid nineties and Michael's need to take advantage of every possible opportunity. And then some. Like Monaco...

He's hardly the first driver to try to make capital out of a quick first qualifying run in Monte Carlo. But again, because of who he is and because of his past, the reaction was out of all proportion. Raikkonen, Alonso, Webber et al were hardly the first drivers to have had a qualifying lap screwed by a yellow. If Michael had held up his hands, he wouldn't have made any friends but maybe a few less enemies.

Ironically, it might end up costing him the championship.

Those who know Schumacher well insist he's an uncomplicated, decent sort with a huge talent for what he does and an unrelenting competitive instinct.

Going back to where I came in, the emotion was tangible leaving the Adelaide paddock that November Sunday night in '93. Senna, to whom it obviously meant so much more, had beaten Prost one more time. It was Alain's last race and Ayrton was leaving McLaren. Tina Turner cranked out the post-race concert with Ayrton up on stage for 'Simply the Best.'

McLaren's Jo Ramirez, close to both men, was given a number of special videos of that day and, years later, they were still in their cellophane. He can't watch them. Nobody could foresee what was six months down the road but, as the mechanics sold their team shirts over the pit wall, it was, so obviously, the end of a fantastic era.

Who knows what will happen at Interlagos on October 22. But one thing I fervently hope is that Michael Schumacher climbs unaided out of a Ferrari, world champion or not, free of recriminations and is given the kind of appreciation he deserves. Grand Prix racing will go on without him. But he's sure as hell made it worth turning up these past 15 years. It's been a privilege.

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- The Autosport.com Team

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