Michael Schumacher is a ....

[TrueBrit]

dirty, cheating, pointy-chinned,smug, self-satisfied, evil bastard...(Just checking..;))


Too bad he's going to win his sixth* WDC this year...:(

I mean really, unless the Ferrari 2003 is an unmitigated, complete and total waste of carbon-fibre what else is there to hope for this year?? The Axis of F-1 Evil at WORST case has the 2002 car to fall back on so in my humble opinion 2003 f-1-wise looks pretty bloody bleak...unless BMW comes up with a legal 1500hp engine and young Ralphie quits trying to crashing into his team-mate, or DC actually has the COMPLETE package to take it to Buttmacher on tracks OTHER than Monaco, does anyone REALLY think that a sixth title isn't going to be in Ass-Macher's possession by mid-year at the latest??

Depressing I know but what the hay..

Cheers!! Pip!! Pip!!

TrueBrit

[Classic Apex]

Glad to see some things never change.

If I didn't know any better, I might think that you don't like Michael Schumacher.


:D

[TrueBrit]

Originally posted by Brian Ericson
Glad to see some things never change.

If I didn't know any better, I might think that you don't like Michael Schumacher.


:D

Lil' Ole Moi?? heheheheheh
;) :D :rofl:

[mapguy]

Originally posted by TrueBrit

I mean really, unless the Ferrari 2003 is an unmitigated, complete and total waste of carbon-fibre what else is there to hope for this year??

C'mon TB, we all know what will happen. The FIA will turn a blind eye to any cheating. If it is too blatent to be ignored the FIA will come up with a lame-assed response. (Remember the barge-board fiasco from Malaysia of a few years back?). If all else fails he'll ram everyone off the road.

[mapguy]

Originally posted by TrueBrit
dirty, cheating, pointy-chinned,smug, self-satisfied, evil bastard...(Just checking..;))




You also forgot greedy and money grubbing.

[chop456]

Originally posted by mapguy
C'mon TB, we all know what will happen. The FIA will turn a blind eye to any cheating. If it is too blatent to be ignored the FIA will come up with a lame-assed response. (Remember the barge-board fiasco from Malaysia of a few years back?). If all else fails he'll ram everyone off the road.

I could be wrong, but I thought that was Austrailia. And yes, that was the biggest steaming pile I've ever seen from the FIA. Can you imagine any other sanctioning body letting a team get away with that nonsense? Ohhhhh, you're right. It's our measuring equipment that's at fault, not your car.... :laugh: And then McLaren gets whacked with a penalty for having the front wing too low at approximately the same measurement and it sticks.

If anyone has a more complete review of what happened, I'd like to rerad it.

[mnkywrch]

Originally posted by chop456
I could be wrong, but I thought that was Austrailia. And yes, that was the biggest steaming pile I've ever seen from the FIA. Can you imagine any other sanctioning body letting a team get away with that nonsense? Ohhhhh, you're right. It's our measuring equipment that's at fault, not your car.... :laugh: And then McLaren gets whacked with a penalty for having the front wing too low at approximately the same measurement and it sticks.

If anyone has a more complete review of what happened, I'd like to rerad it.

IIRC, Ferrari's lawyers were able to find a loophole in the regulations.

If you held the measuring jig in one way, the way the FIA was doing it, it was illegal.

If you held it a different way (and I guess the rules never said how the jig was to be held), it was legal.

[GrandView]

Originally posted by TrueBrit
dirty, cheating, pointy-chinned,smug, self-satisfied, evil bastard...

"When a hero has his bottom smacked in public, everyone is belittled by the spectacle. The fact remains that if Michael Schumacher became available tomorrow, every team manager would be in the queue for his services." - Frank Williams

GV

[GrandView]

Originally posted by chop456

If anyone has a more complete review of what happened, I'd like to rerad it.

The rule cited for the infraction was the one where no part of the bottom pan can extend beyond the "footprint" of the upper body....within a certain tolerance.

The bargeboards must adhere to that same rule.

When measured on the car, the bottom "lip" of Ferrari's boards were deemed to be outside the allowable tolerance of the "footprint" of the upper portion of the board. When Ferrari presented their case they showed that when mounted at a certain angle the lip was within the allowable tolerance of the upper "footprint".

Since only the boards were in evidence, not how they were mounted, they won the appeal.

GV

[mapguy]

Originally posted by GrandView


Since only the boards were in evidence, not how they were mounted, they won the appeal.

GV

How convenient. Remember earlier in the year (France, IIRC) when the scrutineers found that one of the seals on Mika's McLaren was broken and they docked him (or the team) points? There were two seals on the ECU at that time. So it was impossible to tamper with the ECU with only one seal broken. The FIA still docked the points. After the Malaysia fiasco one of the top team directors (probably either Head or Dennis) said "Just give them the damn trophy so we can get back to racing."

Also the punishment that Spoonface got after the Jerez incident was nothing compared with what Villeneuve got for speeding through a yellow flag during practice at Japan earlier. He got his second place taken away from him. Big deal. He still kept his wins. He (and his triumvate of Brawn, Byrne and Todt) are dirty, cheating bastards. Helped by Mosley.

[GrandView]

Originally posted by mapguy
He (and his triumvate of Brawn, Byrne and Todt) are dirty, cheating bastards. Helped by Mosley.

Hmmmmmm......

Jean Todt must be the magic then.

Ferrari didn't receive much help in the Alesi/Berger era.

Brawn and Byrne had a race taken away at Benetton for a questionable infraction. And Schumacher was sat down for two races.

It's way too convenient to dismiss the success of the Ferrari/Schumacher era as cheating. Not to mention disingenuous and simplistic.

GV

[GrandView]

Originally posted by mapguy
Remember earlier in the year (France, IIRC) when the scrutineers found that one of the seals on Mika's McLaren was broken and they docked him (or the team) points? There were two seals on the ECU at that time. So it was impossible to tamper with the ECU with only one seal broken. The FIA still docked the points.

The team lost the constructor points, Mika retained his WDC points.

There was some question of whether the seal had actually been affixed by the FIA in the first place, because it was missing not broken. Allegedly other teams had identical situations.

McLaren should have appealed. They didn't.

GV

[Cam]

The red teams big advantage this year has been reliability! Pure and simple. Blow an engine in a couple of those races and we have a whole different picture.

That said. I wonder IF the red team has found "some" compound/metal that the FIA has not banned to give them that reliability.. ALA McLaren with the Berylium a couple of years ago.... I am betting this is the case and the FIA is turning a blind eye.

Cam.

[GrandView]

Originally posted by Cam
.... I am betting this is the case and the FIA is turning a blind eye.

Considering the efforts FIA is going through to attempt achieving some kind of parity (including bantying about some rather ridiculous solutions), I doubt they're intentionally shielding a secret or dubiously legal Ferrari advantage.

However, if a conspiracy makes you more comfortable.....

GV

[Cam]

Originally posted by GrandView

However, if a conspiracy makes you more comfortable.....

GV

Its a well known FACT that the Red team has been protected by the sanctioning bodies. The Red team is THE only team that has been in from the start for beginners. I was not implying conspiracy..... Simply favoritism.

Cam.

[GrandView]

Originally posted by Cam
Its a well known FACT that the Red team has been protected by the sanctioning bodies. The Red team is THE only team that has been in from the start for beginners. I was not implying conspiracy..... Simply favoritism.

Ah......I see.

I know Bernie and Max are on record as saying in 1999 and 2000 that a Ferrari championship was good for Formula One.....considering the world-wide popularity of the brand.

The FIA must have been highly chagrined that the group of idiots at Maranello couldn't achieve either a WCC between 1983 and 1999; or a WDC between 1979 and 2000. Particularly considering the built-in "favoritism advantage".

So now the genie's out of the bottle and there's no convenient way of stuffing it back in. Is that the story?

Boggles the mind.

Now would be an opportunity to bring up Ferrari's unlimited monetary resources also. Probably not a good idea to do a direct comparison with McLaren/Mercedes however.

GV

[RacinM3]

.........really good driver who was lucky enough to be born into a family whose father owned a karting track, who happens to be and arrogant, money-grubbing pr****. But boy, he's fast!!!

[Joe in LA]

Originally posted by Cam
Its a well known FACT that the Red team has been protected by the sanctioning bodies. The Red team is THE only team that has been in from the start for beginners. I was not implying conspiracy..... Simply favoritism.

Cam.

Keep in mind that although Ferrari has been in the championship from the beginning, Ferrari was adverse to Bernie when FOCA was founded. Ferrari sided with FIA/Jean Marie Balestre, while Bernie led the "garagistas" (I believe that's what Enzo called them) in an effective takeover of the series from FIA, leaving FIA in more of a figurehead position. Subsequently, Bernie worked to get Max (who worked with Bernie against FIA) in as head of FIA. While Ferrari has obviously reconciled with Bernie, they were pretty clearly adversaries at one point. No doubt Bernie and Max were happy to see Ferrari in the championship after a long dry spell, but I don't really buy the idea that they would favor Ferrari in such a way as to have three in a row with two being walkovers.

[RaceChic]

I can say many things about the SOB, none of them being positive!!!
What can I say...he is the thorn in my side when it comes to F1 and takes all the fun out of it for me with his unsportsmanlike behaviour.:mad:

[Cam]

Chic... Take a Number!!!! :rofl:

[RiverRunner]

Michael Shcumacher is a lock in anyone's top ten all timers, I hate to take the few races that he was a putz in to hang him by.
Dude's flat out scary fast.
As for Ferrari, they are Formula One.
Of course they are gonna get some calls their way.
They have built an unbeatable car by the rules for the last few years, which is a helluva surprise since not all that long ago they were building crap.
Having custom built tyres doesn't hurt either.

The scary part for me about F-1 is the direct manufacturer involvement. I think Toyota's budget had to be equal to Ferrari's starting from scratch. Now BMW is making noises as to doing a complete in house deal. Jaguar is Ford, uh, or is it Ford....or is it....hey wait, we got cars at Dhaytoena....and the list goes on. Eventually they are gonna bag it like they did GTP.
Give race teams unlimited budgets and eventually they will get so silly that some shareholder suit or bean counter will make them cease and desist.
Hopefully when that happens Ferrari, Williams, MacLaren, Minardi etc. will still be in the game.