"This is embarrassing. Embarrassing for a world champion. It would even be embarrassing for Ide."
-Jacques Villeneuve, speaking about Michael Schumacher's incident.

Let's face it: Schumi flat-out cheated his way to the pole, then blatantly lied about it. His post-qual interview, conducted by Peter "Softball" Windsor, proved that he couldn't lie his way out of a paper bag. Forgetting the name of arguably one of the most famous corners in F1? Riiiiiiight. Okay, Schu...

Fernando Alonso was a third of a second faster than him going into the final sector, but one of the finest precision drivers in the history of the sport supposedly screwed up a VERY low-speed turn, took two car-lengths to "correct" from it, then stalled his Ferrari, bringing out the yellow.

This is far from the first time he's done something like this, on this track. Wasn't it just last year that he, desperate to get a red flag so he could narrow down the gap to the leaders, "couldn't get by" a spun Minardi? Even though there was plenty of room?

This was so blatant that the FIA immediately declared an investigation. If they judge Schumacher to have done this intentionally, he'll lose ALL his qualifying times, sticking him at the back of the grid... even farther down than his teammate, Felipe Massa, who was the only man to crash on the day.

Couldn't happen to a nicer team.

(UPDATE 638pm Central)
The FIA has decided, and the news is NOT good for Schumi. He's been kicked back to 8th on the grid because of this incredibly obvious and stupid incident.

In related news, Giancarlo Fisichella was dumped to 10th for (inadvertantly) blocking Jack Newtown. One has to think that unless he wins half a dozen races the rest of the way, he's going to be booted from Renault at the end of the season. Amazing, just amazing.

(UPDATED UPDATE 825pm Central)
Turns out it's even worse for Schumi than I had heard. He's been dumped to the BACK OF THE GRID. From the official F1 website:

"Their (the stewards -ed) finding was that Schumacher had no justifiable reason for braking so hard, as he had been traveling little or no quicker than at the same point on previous laps. They therefore concluded that he deliberately stopped his car on the circuit, an infringement of the sporting regulations."

Chances are now excellent that Ferrari will score no points in Monaco, and further sanctions are a possibility. Worse, however, is the huge blot this puts on Michael Schumacher's recordbook. Yes, he's won 7 driver's championships, but he's a flat-out cheater. Twice when the championship was on the line, he's intentionally tried to wreck rivals' cars. He's tried to game the stewards who knows HOW many times... he may be one of the greatest drivers ever, but did Ayrton Senna ever do something like that? Jackie Stewart? Hell, Fernando Alonso?

I wouldn't be opposed to him being suspended for the rest of the season. Hell, take away his superlicense. Yuji Ide may have sucked, but he didn't break the rules, flagrantly and with malice. He was just bad.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 06:18 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 525 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Senna taught Schumi a lot of what he knows.

To wit: Running Alesi (his teammate) off the track at Suzuka to secure the world championship. I forget the year. 1992?

Also running people straight to the guardrail on race starts to defend his position.

While Senna was supernaturally talented, like Schumacher, they're both the polar opposite of what you'd call "sportsmen." They're ruthless, they take everything to the nth degree and they're convinced they're right no matter what. While I admire(d) their talent, I detest(ed) their natures.

In stark contrast, I caught ESPN Classic's Indy 500 marathon on Saturday, and they had one of my heroes on in an interview. I don't know if you know of Rick Mears, but he was a legend at Indy, and most any CART oval race. They talked about how he'd come up second at the then-closest Indy finish in history in 1982. Even after he'd gotten back to the pits and took off his helmet, he was smiling and was fine with having finished second because he knew he'd done all he could. He was even congratulatory to the winner. He never ran people to the grass, never had a bad word to say about anyone else and seemed to always have his feet on the ground.

Why can't F1 stars be like that?

Posted by: SkarTisu at May 29, 2006 07:43 AM (FVDkH)

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