The End of an Era?

Micheal Schumacher finally decides to call it a day. And about time too. I saw him on the podium at Monza this Sunday and something told me that he is going to retire. The celebration lacked something that we have seen every time Micheal won or almost every time Micheal won. He jus wasn’t himself on the Monza podium.

Generally what follows a highly successful sportsman’s retirement decision is a sea of emotions. We saw what an emotional farewell New York gave to another successful sportsman Andre Aggassi. Baghdatis put it simply that the guy deserves every bit of it. And in the three matches that Andre played we saw why he is considered to be a legend in the Tennis community. But somehow it hasn’t been the case with Micheal Schumacher though he chose to announce his retirement at Ferrari’s (a team he brought out of a dump) home country. The sporting fraternity was unanimous in saying that it would miss Schumacher more as an achiever than as a great sportsman. Andre Aggassi on the other hand will be missed for the spirit he got to the sport.

When we talk about Schumacher what we have to remember is that this guy is the most successful F1 driver of all time by a huge margin. (90 wins for MSc and 51 for his closest rival in the race Alan Prost). But what we also have to remember is how he achieved these victories?

There are just too many incidents when it comes to MSc. I know even if we discount these incidents he would be the most successful driver in F1 but what strikes me the most is that even today, after achieving what no one has ever achieved he is ready to pull on more dirty trick out of the bag for the sake of winning (Monaco this year and Indy last year being the latest examples). Why does a guy who has achieved so much not do things the way they are to be done? I know and I understand that he is still hungry for wins which is amazing but why does he have to win in a way which tarnishes his already dark image.

I still remember the Great man Senna, or for that matter Mika Hakkinnen who doesn’t have stats that would even come close to Micheal Schumacher’s plethora of records. I also realize that the whole point of Senna dying on track does add to his heroic image. But what I remember most about Senna is his ability to out do himself every time he went on to the track. He would not look at a pack of underperforming cars and say –“Well, I am comfortably faster than everyone else so let us go easy today”. If that was the case he would compete with himself, compete with himself to the limits of being scary.

I have never seen this in Schumacher. I think and I know that things have come to him a little too easily (for no fault of his own I agree). But when he was faced with adversity he was fallible, not by losing a race but by trying to play dirty to win one.

And that’s where the fine line that divides the greatest from the most successful comes into picture. The great accept their defeat gracefully and do things for pride rather than a mere victory (Senna hit Prost from behind in 91-92 but he said he would do it as Prost had done the same to him the previous season). And that is why I think that Senna is the greatest F1 driver ever where as Schumacher is just the most successful driver in F1 and not the greatest.

All said and done, I am going to miss Msc on track next year. Make no mistake he is an amazingly talented driver. Love him or hate him but you will have to accept that he has brought more fans to F1 than anyone else. Half of those fans decided t make him God and the other half turned into atheists according to the first half.

As for calling it the End of an Era, for me an era ended when Senna died on the track in 1994 and since everything has just been a phase and it will continue to be till we find a man as “driven” as Aryton Senna was.