By David Coulthard for Red Bull Racing

4 August 2010

Michael Schumacher must do more than apologise to repair legacy

Stop the presses. Miracles can happen.

I’m not sure whether Michael Schumacher was ordered to apologise by Mercedes, whether the morning papers got to him (it would be a first) or whether he has truly had a change of heart over his performance in Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix, when he nearly put Rubens Barrichello into a wall at 200mph, but we may have to revise our opinions of him.

Perhaps the 2010 Michael has realised the error of his ways? Certainly this would have been completely out of character in his first F1 career.

I remember a conversation I had with him at Monza in 1998. It was the race after he had crashed into the back of me at Spa; the one where he sought me out in the McLaren garage afterwards and gave the watching snappers something of a gift-wrapped opportunity by throttling yours truly to the words: “Are you trying to ------- kill me?”

Anyway, we met at a neutral venue, the catering tent adjacent to Bernie Ecclestone’s paddock home. Michael was refusing to accept any responsibility for what happened in Belgium.

I asked him whether he had ever been wrong about anything at any point in his life. “Not that I can remember,” he responded.

In many respects that story, for me, summed up his flawed genius. A brilliant driver but an outcast from the sporting Hall of Fame because of occasional bouts of unsportsmanlike behaviour.

Sunday’s episode at the Hungaroring was merely the latest in a long line of on-track indiscretions. Adelaide 1994, Jerez 1997, Monaco 2005... not only does Michael employ the crudest tactics imaginable on occasion, he refuses to apologise for them, even when demonstrably in the wrong.

Until Monday that is.

So are we to believe he has turned a corner? Or is he simply trying to stem the tide of moral outrage?

One thing I would say for him is that he has shown a good deal more humility in press conferences this year; smiling, patient, open about his lack of success. Mind you, given his on-track form I guess he hasn’t had much choice.

There is no doubt that he screwed up badly on Sunday, apology or no apology. It is no exaggeration to say that at that speed, contact might have been fatal. When wheels touch, cars can go airborne and once that happens you are to some extent in the lap of the gods.

A driver’s head is exposed and as we saw with Felipe Massa in Hungary last year, it does not require much in the way of debris to cause serious damage.

Michael was clearly in the wrong. As Rubens said, you pick a line and stick to it. You do not drift progressively further over towards your rival, and certainly not when he has pulled up alongside you with a wall on the other side of him. But it was his complete lack of contrition afterwards that really stuck in the craw.

“We know certain drivers have certain views, and then there’s Rubens,” he said as if the Brazilian was merely getting upset because of their history together at Ferrari.

That arrogance was tolerated, even excused, when he was winning races. It was part of the whole package. Now that he is being regularly shown up by his younger team-mate and compatriot, Nico Rosberg, such lapses of character will not wash.

Until he made his apology, the calls for him to quit immediately were shrill. I wonder whether his mea culpa will make any difference.

Personally I do not subscribe to the view that he should be hounded out now. He is not the worst driver on the grid and if he believes he still has one big punch left in him, and someone is willing to pay him to deliver it, he can make his own mind up about how long he should continue.

But he should be warned; if he chooses to stay, episodes such as the one we saw on Sunday will badly damage his legacy. An apology was a start, but he has a way to go before he can be considered a true champion in every sense of the word.

28 July 2010

Schumacher Should Put Up or Shut Up

The consensus among Schumacher fans is that after three years in the wilderness, and with the lack of in-season testing, the former world champion deserves to drive a car in which he feels comfortable before we can write him off.

My own view, which is what I said before the campaign started, is that we owed him half a season to get used to the new machines and we have now reached that point. 

Schumacher knows how to develop a car and he has now had time to influence things. With nine races to go it is time for Michael to put up or shut up.

I don't think he should be winning races in his Mercedes but he should certainly be expecting by now to be matching, or bettering, team-mate Nico Rosberg if he is still world champion material. That has to be the minimum requirement.

We have just seen Lance Armstrong whimper out of his last Tour de France. It would be awful to think that we might be one and a half seasons away from seeing Michael do the same in a sport he once owned.