Schumacher has been placed P 22

OSiriS wrote:

Someone was trying to argue earlier that it is alright for him to cheat in F1 since it is alright for players to foul in football ... I have to wonder if this person even watches football to try that arguement. If the stewards took the same stance against schumachers as referees take against deliberate fouls in soccer Schumacher would have been removed from the grid entirely and been banned from competing in the next race.

It was one of the anti-Schumacher brigade who brought up the football analogy actually. And, if you actually read the thread, my reply was that if you want to use a footballing analogy, then when has anyone who ever committed a professional foul been called to retire or called a disgrace to the sport? And losing one out of 11 players for the remainder of the match is not as harsh a penalty as being put on the back of the grid in F1. Arsenal very nearly won the Champion's League after the keeper was sent off for a professional foul the other week. I don't remember anyone calling him a disgrace to the sport. I don't remember anyone saying Arsenal should be thrown out of the match completely. I don't remember anyone calling for his retirement. An football equivalent to being thrown to the back of the grid in Monaco would be to give the other team 5 free goals, not to send off one player.

And if you want me to take it further, what Michael did was no different to what Arsenal's keeper did. There was a mistake made, would have left an open goal for Alonso, and in the split second he had he made what was in hindsight a poor decision to try and salvage something from the mistake. No different to a desperate last man back situation in football.

Meanwhile, in the race, Villeneuve, who was one of Schumacher's loudest critics, committed a similar professional foul by overtaking behind the safety car. One of the MF1's(can't remember which) committed a sending off offence by smashing into another car, lets call that a dangerous two footed tackle shall we. Drive through penalties in both cases, nowhere near the punishment of starting at the back.

And then Fisichella held up Mark Webber for two entire laps, costing him his shot at the race victory(yes its all academic when his engine blew but who was to know that at the time). Now I think a team decision to spend two full laps eliminating one of your competitors for the race win like that is far more calculated and far worse from a moral point of view than what Schumacher did. He made a mistake in a split second, they just set out to break the rules. Not only that, but while he was harshly dealt with, nothing was done about Renault, the ITV commentators even called it 'gamesmanship'. a word I've noticed is interchangeable with cheating through the years depending on whether the driver involved is Schumacher or not.

Even in qualifying Fisi also held up his competition and got half the punishment Schumacher did. Fisi held up Coulthard and Schumacher held up Alonso. In the case of Schumacher, again, it happened in a split second and once he was stopped he couldn't undo it. In the case of Fisi, he spent a number of corners in front of Coulthard without bothering to move out of the way, as he could have done at any time. I never saw a replay of Fisi because he's not under the microscope like Schumi, and I don't want to single out Fisi because I've nothing against him in particular, but drivers do that sort of thing every weekend, this week it was Schumi and Fisi, next week it will be someone else.

One thing before the race on Sunday that I noticed, was Ted Kravitz interviewing Kimi on ITV and a question like 'You must be gutted that Schumacher cost you your lap like that' and Kimi replying 'No I wasn't fast anyway it had nothing to do with him', it's nice that at least some of the competition are honest and not just vying for blood.

OSiriS wrote:

No he had the honesty to admit that his last attempt wasn't fast enough to improve his position. Cheating is cheating and should be treated harshly. I don't care how good a driver Schumacher is he should take his defeats graciously instead of trying to throw a sneaky wrench in the works and hope no-one notices. Being careless like Fisi and JV is one thing, deliberately cheating is something completely different so I don't know why you insist on comparing apples and oranges.

Your saying it was just carelessness that Fisi happened to spend two entire laps blocking one of his team mate's strongest competitors? I don't recall any other race where I've ever seen someone held up for that long behind a backmarker.

What I'm saying is that he broke the rules, as many people have, and he was harshly punished for it. Not only that, he took the punishment and all the criticism on the chin, and went on to drive an incredible race on Sunday that proved exactly what he's made of. There's no reason to rub further salt in the wound, what he did wasn't morally reprehensible, it was a mistake. His pace on Sunday showed that it more than likely cost him what could have been a race victory, and had a serious impact on any championship aspirations. I think he's suffered more than enough for what was a poor split-second decision.

Yea I still reckon a drop to tenth place would have been fair, he earned his place in the top ten fair and square after all. It would have been a very interesting race if he'd started 10th I reckon.

In other news from the race(yes, there were 21 other drivers there, these threads make me wonder how boring F1 will be when Schumi retires), Flavio Briatore has been full of praise for Mark Webber and hinting at how he's worthy of a place at a top team. I've always thought he's the obvious replacement for Alonso, he's proven time and again to be able to lift a car into a position where it otherwise wouldn't be in a way very few drivers can. Of all the drivers on the grid, only Michael Schumacher statistically has a better record against his team-mates, that's got to mean something. And Webbo isn't getting any younger, he came into F1 pretty late, so he needs a top drive before he's past his best.