Despite what I have written about Lewis Hamilton’s actions behind the Safety Car over the past couple of days, I think the FIA’s decision was the correct one (it’s not often I say that!). Hamilton broke the rules, but it was not the sort of thing that merited a serious punishment. A slap on the wrists or a fine perhaps, but not points deductions or anything like that.

But I don’t like the implication from the biased British media that Hamilton was found “not guilty”. Remember that Sebastian Vettel’s punishment was taken away from him. There has only been one major piece of new evidence since Sunday, and we all know what that shows.

Of course, the British media is absolutely unbearable when it comes to this sort of thing. Mark Blundell was on ITV this morning criticising the fact that the stewards have never driven a Grand Prix car before, so they’re bound not to know what it’s like. That’s funny, I don’t remember him making such a criticism before, but there you go.

It’s also quite amusing because Blundell would know a lot about not being qualified for your job. He is, after all, a broadcaster who has a shockingly poor grasp of the English language.

Funny also how all of the other Grand Prix drivers seem to have been criticising Hamilton as well. Mark Blundell conveniently ignored this point. After being grilled by his colleagues, Hamilton said:

It was a bit disappointing because I knew a few of the drivers there and I didn’t expect them to say certain things.

Perhaps it’s time to admit when you are in the wrong.

In a way, the FIA couldn’t really have risked giving Hamilton a larger penalty because they would have been accused of manipulating the championship. It’s a sign of the sorry state of affairs that the FIA has found itself in. It is constantly being accused of bias one way or another and of manipulating this and that.

There are a few measures that I would like to see the FIA bring in to help prevent this.

1. When the race result is announced, it should not be changed

   I think there should be a time limit on when the race result can be changed. This is not to say that teams should not be able to appeal or that stewards should be unable to punish bad driving. But there should be a time limit for when a team can appeal a result. Something like six hours for instance. This does not even necessarily mean that the result has to be set in stone — just that we know what is going on. For a race result to come under question several days after the event is simply unacceptable.
   (This would be the case for drivers breaking the rules, but should be different in case a car is found to be illegal. But illegal parts on a car ought to be caught during scrutineering anyway.)

2. Stewards in one race should not rule on something that happened in another race

   For the second time this year, the stewards have found themselves ruling on something that happened in another race. This week the Chinese GP stewards had to discuss something which had already been discussed by the Japanese stewards. This is not on really. It is like a referee at a football match giving someone a yellow card for something a footballer did in his previous match.

3. Make penalties more sensible and predictable

   Whenever somebody is in trouble, you simply do not know what kind of punishment they are going to get. I once saw somebody referring to ‘The FIA Random Penalty Generator’ and it really is true. Disqualification? 10 place grid penalty? Drive through penalty? Start the race from the pits? Points docked? Seconds added to your time? We just don’t know which of these punishments will be used at a particular time. The stewards appear to award penalties in a completely arbitrary manner. It is no wonder people wonder about possible FIA bias. This must be sorted out, as a matter of priority.

What happened during the Japanese Grand Prix is actually a good case in point. Robert Kubica was given a drive-through penalty for being involved in an accident with Lewis Hamilton. Now, Kubica’s move was quite ambitious and he was unlikely to be able to pull it off, but did it really merit a drive-through? After all, other drivers crash into each other all the time and never get so much as a slap on the wrists. It’s kind of seen as part of the territory of motor racing.

You have to wonder when Fernando Alonso got whacked pretty hard by Sebastian Vettel. Unlike Hamilton, Alonso sustained quite bad damage to his car. Did Vettel get punished? Of course not — the FIA is biased against Alonso and in favour of Hamilton.

I know some people don’t believe me when I say that the FIA is biased in favour of Hamilton and that he is the successor to Michael Schumacher in this regard. To me, it is clear in the FIA’s eyes that the departure of Schumacher has left a void, and they have decided that Wonder Boy Britain’s Lewis Hamilton shall fill that void. (I believe it is actually illegal to say ‘Lewis Hamilton’ without prefixing it with ‘Britain’s’.)

There is a resentment about the fact that Alonso was able to beat Michael Schumacher fair and square, when Schumacher had no excuses. Alonso is the only driver ever to have managed this (apart from possibly Mika Häkkinen, and he only did it once, not twice like Alonso did).

But don’t ask me if the F1 establishment favours Hamilton. Ask the F1 establishment itself.

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has hailed Lewis Hamilton as the saviour of the sport…

“Lewis Hamilton has been a real breath of fresh air and has resurrected Formula One,” Britain’s Guardian newspaper quoted commercial rights holder Ecclestone, who is not in Shanghai, as saying…

“We lost a big hero in Michael Schumacher but in Lewis we have another. But for him, I’m not sure where the sport would be heading.”

Straight from the horse’s mouth.

There is no doubt that the mess that the FIA and Formula 1 as a whole currently finds itself in is directly the fault of its power-mad President Max Mosley. A lot of people have been criticising the FIA’s bad management recently (not just the Hamilton investigation, but the bungled email to the teams about tyres at Fuji).

Max Mosley seems to do business on the basis of personal vendettas and the FIA’s institutional pro-Ferrari bias rather than anything to do with notions of fairness or merit. This year’s witch-hunt against McLaren is a case in point — all to do with Max Mosley’s personal dislike of Ron Dennis.

Then there are the extraordinarily offensive comments he made about Jackie Stewart, somebody who had the cheek to criticise the FIA’s handling of the Stepneygate row. Doesn’t he know that people are not allowed to criticise Mosley?

Mosley said: “There’s one particular ex-driver who because he never stops talking, never has the chance to listen — so he doesn’t know what’s going on.

“He said the FIA’s decision would not have worked in a civil court. He has no qualification to say that.

“Then he starts saying this is personal between me and Ron Dennis, at great length, because everything he does is at extreme length.

“It’s annoying that some of the sponsors listen to him because he’s won a few championships. But nobody else in Formula One does — not the teams, not the drivers. He’s a figure of fun among drivers.”

Mosley, presumably alluding to the tartan trousers and cap Stewart wears to races, added: “He goes round dressed up as a 1930s music hall man. He’s a certified halfwit.”

The comment about Jackie Stewart being a “certified halfwit” is seen as a reference to Stewart’s dyslexia. Damon Hill says all that needs to be said in his letter to Autosport magazine.

Update: Pitpass also has a good article on Max Mosley’s comments about Jackie Stewart.

With such contemptuous regard for his fellow inhabitants, one has to wonder what Mosley really feels about the diminutive former second-hand car salesman who not only facilitated his entry to Planet Paddock but has allowed him to enjoy the sort of totalitarian power trip his name prevented him enjoying in the real world.

You don’t often see professional media outlets referring to the fact that Max Mosley is the son of fascist leader Oswald Mosley. Some believe that Max Mosley really wanted a career in politics, but was advised against it due to who is father was. So rather than fucking up the country, Max Mosley decided to go into motor racing politics instead so that he could fuck up motor racing.

Something which is sickeningly called “the Lewis Hamilton effect” is good news for ITV, who are currently enjoying F1 viewing figures which have doubled. The Hungarian Grand Prix attracted 4.7m viewers and 48% viewer share. I heard it being described on the radio yesterday as the saving grace of an ITV that has lost approximately sixty million billion squid from the premium rate phone lines scandal alone.

I feel sorry for all of those people who tuned into the Hungarian Grand Prix expecting a good race. Mind you, a lot of people might have thought it was a great race, but only because Lewis Hamilton won. But it was the most boring race of the season so far, and you would expect that because the Hungarian Grand Prix usually is.

It is a circuit that, famously, you can’t overtake on, which is a bit like having a swimming pool that you can’t swim in. But still they plough on with using the circuit year in, year out while bloody awesome circuits like Spa-Francorchamps are in-out-in-out shake it all about, and Suzuka was dropped completely.

Not only was the race itself utterly dull, but the commentary was even worse than usual — and that’s saying something. Martin Brundle, who really is the only decent person on ITV’s coverage, always takes a holiday for the Hungarian Grand Prix. This is because he is sensible and knows what he is doing. This means that the coverage is even more of a shambles than usual.

Martin Brundle’s replacement was Damon Hill, who was commentating for the first time ever. Perhaps you can forgive him for this, but it made for quite uncomfortable viewing. So many awkward pauses, ums, ers, and appeals to James Allen to help him out whenever he ran out of things to say!

For the post-race analysis we have to put up with Mark Blundell. “I have spoken to this bloke what I know what works down the garage there, and he told me that that car what he’s got underneath him will to the job no bother guv.”

In the pitlane there is Ted Kravitz, who must be admired for actually making a viable career out of stating the bloody obvious. “There is a car in the pitlane. And, YES, they are putting in some fuel! And some new tyres as well. They’re softs. No wait they’re hard tyres. Hang on, are they wets? Actually, I think they might be Michelins.”

I exaggerated a bit, but during the Hungarian Grand Prix Ted Kravitz did actually confuse a soft tyre with a hard tyre. This is despite the fact that James Allen feels the need to explain the “white stripe” rule about a dozen times per race. I mean, honestly. He must think F1 viewers are really thick. Imagine if they explained, say, the handball rule every five minutes during the football coverage. It would drive. You. Insane.

Which brings us on to James Allen, a total stain on the entire image of F1. I can only hope that the masses of fairweather F1 fans who are watching due to “the Lewis Hamilton effect” are shocked enough by the standard of his commentary that ITV will be forced to employ somebody who can actually describe a race without sounding like an over-excited twelve-year-old on an extended sugar high.

James Allen: One smug face you’d never tire of punching

After all, the internet is already near-unanimous in its criticism of James Allen, who has now shockingly commentated on over 100 races. He is so unpopular that you can actually buy t-shirts asking him to PLEASE shut the fuck up!

He was bad enough before. I will never forget the time when Kimi Räikkönen’s suspension failed at the European Grand Prix a couple of years back. Instead of describing the action, James Allen decided to beat his chest and say, “See! I told ya!”

As Robert Doornbos made his début run in F1, James Allen decided to quip, “Some people call him Doorknobs.” Yeah, but only twunts like you!

And when Jenson Button had a disastrous pitstop last year, James Allen yelped, “Oh no! It’s all gone Pete Tong!” I was so embarrassed just hearing him say that, I wanted to curl up and die.

Now I have some actual video evidence. This is what happened when Jenson Button finally won a race at Hungary last year. It sounds like James Allen got so excited that he actually jizzed in his mouth and was rendered incapable of forming a proper sentence. Mind you, that is what he normally sounds like, but with ‘twat’ levels set at 10 rather than 11.

It was bad enough when the only half-decent British driver on the grid was Jenson Button. Now there is a British driver who is able to win races by means other than sheer luck, and James Allen has now reached the stage where he has become actually unbearable.

I am sure everyone who watched the Malaysian Grand Prix still has ringing in their ears from James Allen’s wails of “WHERE’S LEWIS?! WHEEEERE’S LEWISSSS?!!??!??!!?” when Hamilton was about to cross the line to finish in second place. He sounded like a petulant child on Christmas Eve demanding that he gets to open his presents RIGHT NOW.

James Allen went on to say, “Well he finished third in Melbourne, and second here. What does that mean for Bahrain?” This implied that Hamilton would go on to win at Bahrain. Then he would finish in position 0 in Spain, then position −1 in Monaco (I believe that finishing in −1^st position is equivalent to disappearing up your own backside).

Unbelievably, James Allen actually repeated the “WHERE’S LEWIS?!” routine during qualifying for the British Grand Prix. Then, when the director cut to Lewis Hamilton, “COME ON! YES!” Not again! What has James Allen come on this time?

At least when Lewis Hamilton actually won a race James Allen managed to avoid saying something really embarrassing like “YES! GET IN THERE!” There is actually a Facebook group dedicated to James Allen’s embarrassing blurt-outs called I’m Clicking Mute When Hamilton Wins. As they point out there, while James Allen managed to avoid saying anything downright embarrassing, he still completely cocked it up by getting the timing completely wrong.

LEWIS HAMILTON…………… (tea break)…………… WINS!

He repeated the performance, word-for-word, complete with tea break, at the following race in the USA.

The Facebook group also mentions James Allen’s anecdote about his son talking about how rubbish Lewis Hamilton is (I wrote about this already here).

JA’s son thinks Lewis is rubbish. He must have got a smacked bottom for that!

I wonder which of his sons it was — Enzo or Emerson? There is a dream for school bullies if ever there was one. At least James Allen’s children will grow up to be thick-skinned. (And we all know what his next child will be called… James Allen will shit himself if it’s a girl though; what would he do then? Lewisina?)

Other Facebook groups dedicated to ITV’s awful F1 coverage

• Get rid of James Allen form ITV F1
• I want to see F1, not Lewis Hamilton’s life story

Past posts on the shambles that is ITV-F1

• ITV F1 wins Bafta; F1 fans leave country — featuring Ross Brawn’s criticism of ITV
• Welcome to the world of the thwarted F1 fan — ITV hilariously cut short the programme when Lewis Hamilton won his first race!

The Hungarian Grand Prix was predictably predictable; boring as expected. It is just as well that other situations have exploded, meaning that the circus leaves Budapest with plenty to digest.

I was amazed by what Fernando Alonso did in qualifying. It really was a dirty tactic worthy even of King Dirty Tactic himself, Michael Schumacher. But I could not help admiring the genius of it. It was not dangerous like Rascassegate, and Alonso had the brains to work out exactly how long he needed to stay in the box so that he could get a lap in but Hamilton couldn’t. I have to admire the cleverness of it.

While Alonso’s stunt looked bad on television, it has since transpired that it was a kind of ‘tit-for-tat’ payback for Hamilton breaking team policy by leading the train in the fuel burn phase when it was Alonso’s turn. Apparently they take it in turns so that the advantages even out, but Hamilton’s competitive side got the better of him and he became greedy.

The fallout has been nasty in the extreme. It looks as though all kinds of relationships have been ruined. Of course, Hamilton and Alonso seem to have had a proper falling out now. Alonso’s relationship with the McLaren team looks dead and buried, with strong rumours that he has decided he will move to another team for next year. Even the relationship between Hamilton and Ron Dennis has gone sour, with reports of an exceptionally angry exchange of words on the team radio.

It is difficult to know who, or what, to point the finger at. It looks as though Hamilton instigated it, but should it be a surprise when an extremely competitive individual grabs every opportunity he can? Alonso could have risen above it but his “payback” was harsh.

An interesting theory links back to one of McLaren’s biggest weaknesses — the lack of flexibility in their strategies. We have seen some poor strategy from McLaren this season, with notable backfires in Monaco and Canada.

Clive at the excellent Formula 1 Insight blog reckons that McLaren’s undoing was their decision to stick to their original strategy so rigidly when they could have just adapted it to cope with what Hamilton had done. Let’s face it. Asking a competitive driver with the adrenaline pumping to let his team mate through is surely like moving a mountain.

There have even been plenty of people blaming the qualifying format, and I certainly sympathise with that view as well. If it wasn’t for that ridiculous fuel burn-off phase then none of this probably would have happened.

I struggle to understand why McLaren as a constructor was penalised in the way it was. I can fully understand why Alonso was moved back five grid positions. But why McLaren were unable to score Constructors’ points, and suffered the humiliation of being barred from the podium ceremony, I do not get. (Incidentally, does this mean that officially Hamilton won the race in a non-existent car?!)

Some of the commenters at F1Fanatic reckon that McLaren was punished for not acknowledging that Alonso was in the wrong. But if that is so, surely the penalty is rather harsh?

In fact, given McLaren’s large lead in the Constructors’ Championship, and the fact that we are nearing the end of the season, it looks suspiciously as if it was designed to artificially bring Ferrari back into the hunt. After all, even with this penalty, McLaren lead the Championship by 19 points. Without the penalty, that would be a downright intimidating 34 points.

This has further increased the perception that penalties handed out in F1 are inconsistent and unfair. F1 Insight made reference to the random penalty generator, and that was before we learned what the punishment actually was.

This situation is understandable in one sense, because I don’t recall anything like what Alonso did happening before. The closest comparison was Rascassegate, but most agree that this is not as serious as that. Like I said, the five place penalty was probably about right, but where did the FIA pluck the McLaren punishment from? They really do make it up as they go along.

During the commentary, Damon Hill quipped that the FIA were one step away from introducing the Naughty Chair. Michael Schumacher certainly made the podium his personal “naughty step” once or twice in his career. Maybe it would be better just to put the drivers on a stand and let the crowds throw rotten tomatoes as they see appropriate. It would certainly avoid all of this random penalty business.

Still, Ron Dennis has hinted that McLaren may not appeal the decision. Perhaps this is wise because, (rightly or wrongly) the media seems to want to see McLaren punished for the Stepneygate goings-on (even though it was not their fault) and for perceived bias against both Alonso and Hamilton (yeah, biased against both drivers — that’s the media’s logic for ya).

Perhaps it would be wise for McLaren to take this on the chin, then use the three-week break to lick their wounds and rebuild bridges. When Ron Dennis was interviewed on ITV after the race, he looked absolutely shattered — emotionally drained and fed up with the events of the past few months. I hope he has a good holiday, because he undoubtedly needs it. As Sidepodcast noted:

…you do have to ask what big Ron has to do to catch a break these days? The poor man lurches from crisis to crisis, firefighting at each turn, yet none of it is a result of any wrongdoing by the man himself.

Finally, a word on Pitpass, who have once again completely blown this whole thing out of proportion by yet again predicting the death of F1. They said that after Rascassegate and it was of course nonsense. This is fantastic entertainment, and there is no doubt that recent events have got people interested in F1 like never before.

GrandPrix.com notes that Massa broke a rule at the end of the Brazilian Grand Prix. I thought this as soon as I saw him being handed the flag. That’s right. A driver waving a flag to celebrate at the end of the race is against the rules.

The ridiculous rule was either brought in after Damon Hill waved a Union Flag at Silverstone or Olivier Panis flew the tricolore at Monaco. It also brought to an end to one of the most iconic moments of an F1 victory. You can buy die-cast models of Hill waving the Union Flag from his car. Yet today the act of doing so is banned.

It’s not the only ridiculous rule about celebrating victories. Drivers are no longer allowed to give other drivers a lift. Maybe you can excuse this for safety reasons, but I’m sure F1 drivers are very much aware of the risks involved in doing this.

Teams are not allowed to climb the pit wall when a driver crosses the finish line — another ridiculous rule brought in for seemingly no reason.

And here is the big one. F1 drivers are not allowed to do donuts on their slowing down lap.

Isn’t that unbelievable? It would be like banning goal celebrations in football. Wait a minute…

The world of Formula 1 will be waking up to a very different world this morning. Some say that Michael Schumacher is very important to Formula 1, that his success has attracted fans who want to be able to say to their grandchildren that they watched the greatest racing driver of all time.

I don’t buy that. Michael Schumacher is famous because he is a good Formula 1 driver. Formula 1 isn’t famous because Michael Schumacher was dominant. There are probably a great many sportsmen who are dominant in their field, but are completely unknown because their field is anonymous. Formula 1 was big before Michael Schumacher and it will be big after Schumacher. It might even be bigger in his absence as we see closer competition.

Michael Schumacher is unquestionably the most successful Formula 1 driver in history. He was just one victory short from having as many wins as the two next most successful drivers (Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost) put together. Dizzyingly, he has won more than a third of the 250 races he has entered.

He also has more pole positions, more front-row starts, more fastest laps than anyone else (and actually more than the next two drivers — Prost and Nigel Mansell — put together), more podiums than anyone else, led more laps, scored more points and — of course — won more World Championships than anyone else. Put simply, he has achieved every record worth setting, and then some.

What is also incredible about Michael Schumacher is that he has looked capable of winning every single World Championship since 1994 (apart perhaps from 1996 when he was driving a dog of a Ferrari — and he even managed to score a good few race victories in that).

But these records are just lists of numbers. You can argue that a lot of this is just down to the nature of modern-day Formula 1 racing. In the 1950s and 1960s there were far fewer races per season — sometimes in the single figures compared to today’s eighteen in a season.

So what about Schumacher’s actual racing? This is where there is great debate about Michael Schumacher’s status as one of the sport’s true greats. The phrase “flawed genius” is a bit of a cliche, but it might as well have been invented for Michael Schumacher. It is difficult to think of a more controversial driver. Almost all of the most negative publicity in Formula 1 over the past decade and a half has involved Michael Schumacher in some form or another — last year’s exploding Michelin tyres at the US Grand Prix being the exception.

It was beginning to feel as though Schumacher was mellowing in recent years. And then came Rascassegate, where Michael Schumacher controversially parked his car on the track during qualifying at Monaco to prevent Fernando Alonso setting a faster time.

You can clearly see his movement in the steering wheel — he starts to steer left in the middle of a right turn. Jackie Stewart said, “This was too blatant. When you see it in slow motion, turning the wheel one way and then the other, he had plenty of time to do something.”

The incident brought back a lot of bad memories from the past decade. The July issue of F1 Racing magazine listed some of Schumacher’s transgressions. The list is long.

• Britain 1994 — Disqualified and banned for two races after failing to take his stop-go penalty for overtaking on the warm-up lap
• Australia 1994 — Crashed into Damon Hill to ensure victory in the 1994 Drivers’ Championship
  
• 1994 season — Suspect software found on the Benetton that Schumacher drove
• Brazil 1995 — Accusations that Schumacher delibrately put on weight for the twice-yearly weight check so that he could race underweight
• Belgium 1995 — Blocking moves lead to the introduction of the ‘one move’ agreement where drivers can only move once to prevent being overtaken
• Europe 1997 — Drove into Jacques Villeneuve in an attempt to secure the Drivers’ Championship. “You’ve hit the wrong part of him my friend!,” said commentator Martin Brundle. Williams put Villeneuve’s car on display to show the mark left by Schumacher’s tyre.
  
• Britain 1998 — Wins the race in the pit lane by taking his stop–go penalty after crossing the finish line
• Canada 1998 — Forces Frentzen to leave the track by abruptly joining the racing line after a pit stop, leading to the introduction of the pit lane exit line that cannot be crossed
• Belgium 1998 — Accuses David Coulthard of “trying to fucking kill me” after crashing into the back of the Scot
• Austria 2000 — Following a shunt, manoeuvres his car into a dangerous position in an attempt to get the race red-flagged and re-started
• Austria 2001 — Team-mate Rubens Barrichello forced by Ferrari to pull over to let Schumacher through on the last corner
  
• Germany 2001 — Once again moves his car into a dangerous position in an attempt to get the race red-flagged — this time successfully
• Austria 2002 — Barrichello again forced to let Schumacher pass on the final corner — this time for the win. The spectators were furious. This leads to the “ban” on team orders
  
• USA 2002 — A failed attempt at a “manufactured dead heat”. Some say it is payback for Austria. Once again, the fans are furious — and of all places, the USA is the one place this should not happen
• Europe 2003 — Successfully encourages track marshals to push his beached car back on to the race track
• Britain 2004 — Deliberately spins in quali 1 to miss the rain expected in quali 2
• Australia 2005 — Yet again helped out by marshals who choose to ignore Nick Heidfeld who is also beached
• Monaco 2006 — Rascassegate

The BBC has another list here.

What you have here is a man who is determined to win at all costs. Not all of these incidents were methodically planned in advance. Many of them happened when Schumacher was under great pressure. These decisions were made quickly. Schumacher is a quick thinker, and he knows how to make the best out of a bad situation. Unfortunately, it has left this otherwise outstanding driver with a somewhat tarnished reputation; a reputation as an ruthless, intimidating cheat.

Many argue that this is what you need to become a seven times World Champion. You need a bit of aggression, a do-or-die attitude, a notion that you must win at all costs. It’s just unfortunate that this trait has overshadowed his achievements.

People point at the fact that Ayrton Senna was hardly a clean racer either. He was known for stooping to low levels in order to win, probably most controversially when he crashed into his own team mate and championship rival, Alain Prost in order to win the Drivers’ Championship. Jacques Villeneuve might be known for his outspoken rants, but I think he had it spot on when he was asked about Michael Schumacher in an interview for the September issue of F1 Racing.

Michael simply isn’t a great champion because he’s played too many dirty tricks and because he isn’t a great human being. Yes, Senna played dirty tricks, too, but he did it with more class, more integrity. When he took Prost out at Suzuka in 1990, he said he was going to do it before the race. So, unlike Michael, who ridiculously insisted he was innocent at Monaco this year, Senna said, ‘Yes, I did it. But I told you before the race that I was going to do it.’ That’s very different from what Michael did at Monaco and Jerez [in 1997] and Adelaide [in 1994]. Senna wasn’t lying to his fans. Michael was.

Another dimension of the Michael Schumacher debate that has cropped up this weekend is the fact that it is difficult to remember any great overtaking manoeuvres that he has made. I was thinking the same thing myself before this weekend. Schumacher is certainly quick at getting a car around a circuit, but when he actually has to race other cars? That’s more tricky.

But in retrospect I think that might be an unfair criticism. Even today we saw a few great moves from him. Nevertheless, it has to be said that Ferrari and Michael Schumacher preferred to make gains in position through having a superior pitstop strategy rather than taking a risk on the circuit. This might be the prudent thing to do from Schumacher’s point of view, but it is a very unattractive way to win a race.

Then add in to the equation all of the races that Schumacher has won from pole position. This is another one of Schumacher’s incredible records. He has done it a staggering 37 times. Sometimes it was all too easy for him to win races, particularly in 2002 and 2004. The dominance is not good for the sport. I cannot remember a great deal of the early part of this decade.

When Schumacher hasn’t had such a dominant car it has sometimes felt like he is a bit rusty at actually racing. Nevertheless, Schumacher’s ability to make his way through the field so easily if he happened to start at the back of the grid for whatever reason is pretty much unparalleled. As far as overtaking goes, I’ll give Schumacher the benefit of the doubt.

Another, kind of related, criticism of Schumacher is that for most of the time he has been in the best car. This was certainly true for some seasons. But were the Benettons of 1994 and 1995 really the best cars? Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve benefited more from their utterly dominant Williams cars in 1996 and 1997.

The Ferrari of 1996 certainly wasn’t the best car in the field. Ferrari might have had the prestige, but it was in a horrendous barren spell which had seen little substantial success for the team since the 1970s. And Michael Schumacher can certainly take much of the credit for building Ferrari into a team of world beaters by the 2000s.

But it is true that Michael Schumacher has had little real competition. Formula 1 in days gone by has had so many greats — Prost, Senna, Clark, Stewart, Fangio and so on. But the past ten years has been a barren spell, Schumacher aside of course. Maybe this is genuinely because Michael Schumacher is simply head and shoulders above everybody else.

But really, where was his competition? In the 1990s the closest he had to a championship rival was Damon Hill, and Hill can hardly be considered one of the sport’s very greatest. And Jacques Villeneuve certainly can’t. After Mika Häkkinen won his back-to-back titles in the late 1990s, Michael Schumacher literally had no rivals for years. Now we have a crop of young promising drivers — Kimi Räikkönen and particularly Fernando Alonso look as though they have great futures ahead of them.

We’ve seen a few good seasons of Alonso versus Schumacher, so you can’t accuse Schumacher of running away as soon as the competition got tough. But everybody will remember the way he would never allow a competitive driver to be his team mate. The list of Schumacher’s team mates is hardly a hall of fame: Johnny Herbert, Eddie Irvine, Rubens Barrichello, Felipe Massa. Then there is the fact that the entire Ferrari team was built around Schumacher’s Championship hopes. The team would do everything in its power to manipulate the result even if it meant a gain of just one point for Schumacher.

Now that Kimi Räikkönen has joined Ferrari, Michael Schumacher has jumped ship. There was an opportunity for Michael Schumacher’s talent to be measured against a genuinely quality driver racing in identical machinery. But Schumacher denied the fans a chance to judge his ability in a competitive environment. So we’ll never know. What a great shame.

Schumacher didn’t like racing. He only liked winning.

So will Michael Schumacher mainly be remembered for his amazing skill or for his questionable tactics? I think the fact that the debate even exists means that we already know the answer.

Update: Schumi comes under fire from Hill.