Chinese Checkers
Just when it looked like he didn't stand a chance of fighting at the top of the field, Michael Schumacher played like a master exponent of Chinese Checkers and went on to beat title rival Fernando Alonso and take the championship lead with just two races to go. Richard Barnes analyses the two contenders' Chinese GP weekend
It is appropriate that Sunday's Grand Prix was held in China, for the race (indeed the entire weekend) represented the yin and yang of modern F1 - wet and dry, heroes and zeroes, Michelin and Bridgestone, Renault and Ferrari, daring and caution, strategic brilliance and tactical blunders, greybeard experience and rookie rawness, triumph and despair. And, ultimately and symbolically, one team dropping their champagne bottle while the other caught theirs.
For Ferrari's Michael Schumacher, the Chinese connection went beyond the yin and the yang. In the third last race of his career, Schumacher played like a master exponent of Chinese checkers, deftly ensuring that each move dropped him into exactly the right slot at the right time, and able to respond to any counter from his opponents.
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