i dont see how the car could possibly be sliding at that moment ... its almost standing still at that point ... hard to tell how fast he really is but it looks a lot like hes going at a speed where youd find it hard to get a car on road tyres into a slide

Quote from tristancliffe :

.....As I've said I don't have the telemetry so I can't say where he braked, or his speeds....

But the stewards did. With the might and majesty of Ferrari and Schumacher to contend with, it seems unlikely they would have dished out the punishment they did without some pretty damning evidence. Even the Ferrari spokesman, Luca somebody, didn't seem to be as outraged as he should have been if it was a 'mistake'

I'll get me coat.

Well, if your road car had 700hp and weighed the same as an empty crisp packet, you'd probably be able to get it into a slide by just turning the radio on

Anyway, it don't matter anymore, the powers that be made their judgement and he started from the pitlane, and, in my opinion, watching him scythe his way through the rest of the field was the highlight of the race. Infact, i would go as far as saying it was probably the best performance by any driver this season, especially on a track thats considered to be impossible to overtake on.
Like him or loathe him, you've got to admit, he's damn quick, and at heart he's a pure racer. (sometimes us old foggies can teach you young whippersnappers a thing or two , well, at least he can, maybe not me

Quote from TagForce :

The problem is not so much that he did it... It is how he did it...

What I find to be the most disappointing is WHY he did it. He goes on to show what a great driver he is by finishing 5th! (I still don't like the arrogant, cheating git! . I'd kick him off my server straight away)

Quote :

With the might and majesty of Ferrari and Schumacher to contend with, it seems unlikely they would have dished out the punishment they did without some pretty damning evidence.

Consider the alternative from their perspective in relation to that though, FIA from the spectators' and other teams' point of view, could have lost their credibility altogether or significantly, had they had not issued a penalty against MSc and Ferrari. So many teams saw this as an intentional obstruction that FIA could have turned out to look very bad, being "scared" of MSc & Ferrari, or even licking their backside.

From that POV, right call or wrong, it was the lesser evil for FIA itself, I believe.

I agree with that NAI. Even if Ferrari had perfect proof it was a genuine mistake the FIA had no choice but to give him a severe penalty.

And yes, it was the best bit of the race. FA must be one of the most boring drivers in the world ever (somehow beating Kimi for being dull, cos at least Kini drives in an exciting manner), and I can't wait for him to go to McLaren - no more WDC's for him ever again...

Kimi and Schumi at Ferrari - could it get any better than that?

Quote from tristancliffe :

Kimi and Schumi at Ferrari - could it get any better than that?

That is something that I REALLY hope to see some day. I just can't believe how unreliable Mclaren is, race after race, season after season. No other team has this bad reliability.

Sure it was particially the pace cars fault yesterday, but funnily no other teams car broke due to heat problems like Mclaren.

Quote from tristancliffe :

I agree with that NAI. Even if Ferrari had perfect proof it was a genuine mistake the FIA had no choice but to give him a severe penalty.

Yep, could'nt agree more, NAI's statement was the most concise statement in the whole thread

Quote :

FA must be one of the most boring drivers in the world ever

You must have a worse memory than me two words.... Alain Prost !

What i want to know is how it is fisichella has had about 20 mechanical problems since alonso joined the team and i can't remember alonso having any. It's even more extreme than the ratio of barrichello - schumacher (at ferrari) or raikkonen - montoya failures.

F**K F**K F**K F**K F**K!!!!

i set me media b0x to record the F1's on sat night, and me housemate rebooted the b0x at somepoint, and it killed the shedueled recording.. so i cant watch the race..


<---- not happy....

Quote from joshdifabio :

What i want to know is how it is fisichella has had about 20 mechanical problems since alonso joined the team and i can't remember alonso having any. It's even more extreme than the ratio of barrichello - schumacher (at ferrari) or raikkonen - montoya failures.

about that.. everyone thinks kimi has the bad luck..monty has the worst luck on the grid (now its webber :P).

IMO, i think Mercedes are the main problem in the McLaren partnership. How many times has the fastest car on the grid been let down by a blown engine.

Wasn't the engine. The exhaust temperatures climbed during the pitstop and following the safety car wasn't letting them cool down. Eventually they burnt through the heat sheild and through a wiring lume

http://www.speedyshare.com/237272542.html < Overhead shots comparing Schumachers entrance into the corner with his lap before

He is hugging the barrier - taking the narrowest line possible through the corner. His entrance speed is said to be the exact same by the FIA so why take such a narrow line ? and then brake so hard to lock the fronts ?

That car isn't sliding

Keiran

Quote from Mazz4200 :

You must have a worse memory than me two words.... Alain Prost !

Good point

Edit: keiran, that video is so slow that you can't see ANY sliding, yet in every normal speed video you can distinctly see a big (for the low speed) slide. So your video, rather than conclusive proof, is just poor.

sorry if this has been posted before, but is there any video clips of the post qualy interviews?

im dying to see schum explain himself.

and for my pennys worth, the guy was given the right punishment, because even a blind man could have seen what he was up to.
a leopard never changes its spots.

"FA must be one of the most boring drivers in the world"..............LMAO.......what a stupid thing to say........cos "the most boring driver in the world" breezed pass your darling schumi at 130R!!!!!

@Tristan
What's done is done now and I think we're going to disagree on his reason for straightening up

After reading the FIA statement and watching the videos I can see no reason for him to :

a) Take such a tight line when he is entering the corner at the same speed
b) Brake with a much harder force than his previous laps causing the front inside to lock up
c) To stop turning while the car was easily going to go around the corner
d) The engine just `cut` out I doubt Ferrari is short of anti-stall programs

Concluded with his rather sheepish press conference he looked like a guilty man. He has a history of these sort of things and it seems he still feels the need to do them to win.

Keiran

Tristan, real life has a lot less oversteer than LFS, don't forget...

I did find the line very odd and though it might slide at 2..3 secs in that slomo vid but at about 6 seconds where he turns in there IS no sliding at all, I really don't think you'd need telemetry (they can mess with that too ) to see that. The car reacts normally to what the front wheels are doing. Schumacher then straightens the wheel for no reason.

I have no 'idols' in racing, Schumy is really really fast and has a 'nice' record to prove this. So I'm not really anti schumi at all, I mean you can't change the face you're born with..

Quote from keiran :

@Tristan
What's done is done now and I think we're going to disagree on his reason for straightening up

After reading the FIA statement and watching the videos I can see no reason for him to :

a) Take such a tight line when he is entering the corner at the same speed
b) Brake with a much harder force than his previous laps causing the front inside to lock up
c) To stop turning while the car was easily going to go around the corner
d) The engine just `cut` out I doubt Ferrari is short of anti-stall programs

Concluded with his rather sheepish press conference he looked like a guilty man. He has a history of these sort of things and it seems he still feels the need to do them to win.

Keiran

Yes, I don't mind disagreeing at all

a) Take such a tight line - maybe this was the original mistake, going a bit wide and getting on the marbles.
b) To what degree was it harder? We don't know. 2%? 20%? All we have been told is harder. Maybe it was a desperate bid to slow down on the marbles.
c)Watch that video you posted again, he clearly can't get round without hitting the barrier. Sure it would only have been a damaged front wing, but who knows what else might have then happened as a consequence.
d)The engine 'eventually died' according to Schumi. Engines do die. Drivers OFTEN find it hard to find reverse, and the cars aren't especially good at idling, especially when hot (in pitstops they keep the revs up a bit, not letting the ECU control the idle).

I get a feeling that, guilty or not, people are accusing him without taking in all the evident. Guilty before proven innocent, something that I was taught as a child is a bad thing. I have a funny feeling that if you were shown that video without knowing who it was, you would almost certainly declare them innocent. Thus preconditioning has meant your views (not directed at you Kieran) are biased from the outset. How can anyone be just in such a circumstance? Please, I hope most of you don't sit on juries in the near future.

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

Tristan, real life has a lot less oversteer than LFS, don't forget...

Do cars in real life have less oversteer, or do g-forces, feel and driver skill mean that it's normally corrected before it's noticable? Big big difference.

And yet again you state that your opinion was almost preconcieved, which makes you the worst judge. I haven't ASSUMED he was innocent, I've looked and made my mind up from all the evidence I have seen. But MANY people here HAVE ASSUMED he is guilty, without taking stock of said evidence. That's my main problem with the arguments here - lack of free thought, though some are doing a good job of presenting valid arguments.

The thing I can't understand is why did he stop turning at 6 second into that video ? He was only doing 30-40mph tops. Had he had oversteer he'd have easily corrected that without throwing so much opposite lock on that the car just changed direction instantly. Comparing that will all the other videos I see no need for him to remove so much steering lock, in my opinion that car was going to go around the corner.

If we give Schumacher the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn't approach Rascasse with the intention of parking the car and we assume there was an initial innocent mistake (very strange entry line, for one, and the initial corrections and lockup), was it beyond an experienced F1 driver to get the car around the corner?

If Schumacher had been leading the race and made those initial mistakes, would he have got through the corner without stopping against the barrier? I'd put money on it that he could.

We know Schumacher's been known to make split second decisions of a dubious nature before, so I'm more inclined to believe that once he'd screwed the lap his instantaneous reaction was that a yellow flag would be good, rather than it being more premeditated. The only thing that points towards it being more 'planned' was the stupid line into Rascasse, which looking at the onboard footage approaching Rascasse, didn't seem to be through running wide, but rather through an early turn in. Prior to turning in there were only small steering inputs, and although he wasn't hugging the barrier on the left, he was still mostly on the 'rubbered' racing line.

The FIA stewards had access to far more data than we do and have stated the entry speed was no higher than normal and that he braked considerably harder than normal. They also interviewed Schumacher and team members (lets hope Schumacher managed to act less guilty than in the PC). I really doubt the FIA would choose the verdict for popularity (it's not something they've done before), and given the time they took to reach their conclusion probably discussed every possible scenario.

For me, of the three basic scenarios:
1) mistake(s)
2) initial mistake and then instantaneous reaction to park and bring out yellows
3) Not a mistake and fully planned earlier in the lap

It's a shame there wasn't evidence to show 1) because it's become another black mark (or as Schumacher calls them, black dots on his white Jacket) on an amazing career record. I really don't want to believe it was 3) and my gut reaction (based on our limited evidence, the FIA’s verdict, and dare I say it, past misdemeanors) is that it was a case of 2).

But it's just my opinion and the one that counted was that of the FIA. In the end Schumacher produced yet another fantastic drive in the race, with not a single mistake at Rascasse

Quote from keiran :

The thing I can't understand is why did he stop turning at 6 second into that video ? He was only doing 30-40mph tops. Had he had oversteer he'd have easily corrected that without throwing so much opposite lock on that the car just changed direction instantly. Comparing that will all the other videos I see no need for him to remove so much steering lock, in my opinion that car was going to go around the corner.

After encounting oversteer, he might want to correct the wheel a bit to get a wider angle into the last corner to have a good initial speed leading to the backstraight, but he overdid that, when he realised that it was just too late, he had to park the car or he would've kissed the wall. But it did look very suspicious the way he did it. I am undecided whether he really did it on purpose, but I still think the stewards made the right choice.

The thing is no driver in there right mind would over correct the car that much as Jacque put it :

Quote :

"I truly hope it was deliberate, because if that was a mistake he should not even have an F1 superlicence," Villeneuve said. "If you make a mistake like that, you shouldn't even drive a race car. There's no way you could make a mistake like that."

Quote :

"It's only going to make him look bad. This is embarrassing. Especially for a world champion. It would even be embarrassing for Ide."

Theres just no way he'd strighten the car up mid corner to try get better speed. He strigtens it up in the middle of a corner after turning right. There was 0 oversteer when he was turning around the 2nd part of Rascasse.

One of the Stewards, Joaquin Verdegay of the Spanish motorsport federation, has spoken about the decision to give Schumacher the penalty.

"It was a painful decision because we could not make a mistake and put the reputation of a driver at risk,


"We don't know if the entire manoeuvre was deliberate, but in that spot he had certainly not done anything like it throughout the weekend: he braked over 50% more heavily than on the other laps.


"Then he performed some absolutely unnecessary and pathetic counter-steering, and that lasted five metres, until there was no more chances of going through the turn normally.


"He lost control of the car while travelling at 16km/h! That's something completely unjustifiable. And the engine shut off because he wanted it to, by losing enough time before hitting the clutch. And the excuse that he did not engage reverse because there was traffic doesn't make sense."

Make of it what you will....

Quote from wE1l :

he might want to correct the wheel a bit to get a wider angle into the last corner

to me it looks like he was already pretty much through the second corner when he steered straight

Quote :

"I truly hope it was deliberate, because if that was a mistake he should not even have an F1 superlicence," Villeneuve said. "If you make a mistake like that, you shouldn't even drive a race car. There's no way you could make a mistake like that."

reminds moe of something the (rather funny) gp commentators on eurosport had to say about some incident at nürburgring
"if that was delibarate he deserves a 3 race ban ... if it was an accident he deserves a 3 race ban"

was he really going 16 kmh at that point ?