Schumacher Who?????

WRITTEN BY A ROYAL FERRARI FAN
After 1813 days of royally ruling the Formula-1 world, Michael Schumacher handed over his World Championship crown to Fernando (undeserving) Alonso on the 25th September, 2005.If you follow Formula-1 race to race you'll be able to decipher what I'm trying to say.After being the World Champion from 2000 to 2004 and after Fernando Alonso became the World Champion in the Brazilian Grand Prix, one of the Renault mechanics wore a t-shirt, which proudly proclaimed "SCHUMACHER WHO??"Im a Michael Schumacher fan big time so the rebellious side of my psyche woke up.I have always felt that I have to answer that particular Renault mechanic and also tell every MGITian what a force Michael Rolf Schumacher is.
He is arguably the best F-1 driver the world has ever seen in action.Peole say if Aryton Senna was alive he would have been better than michael but in defence, I say there is a big IF there and on top of that Senna died while racing, which shows that he lacked control. Now is that a quality of an all time racing great??
Michael has won the World championship 2 times more than Juan Manual Fangio(5). He holds the record for highest number of fastest laps(69), most races led(127), most laps led(astonishing 4664), most number of wins(84 which is ahead of Alain Prost who had won 51 races), most number of triples which is pole position, win and fastest laps(20), most wins in a season(13 out of 17), most wins with the same team(65 with Ferrari), most wins from pole(37), most podiums(an astounding 142), most podiums in a season(17 out of 17.Beat that!!!!!), most podiums with the same team(76 with Ferrari), most poles with the same team(59 wiht Ferrari ofcourse), most points in a season(148), most time between first race and last race(12 years,10 months and 21 days).
Now if there is gonna be even one more F-1 driver who is going to beat at least 15 of the 20 records that Schumi holds(forget all 20) I will bet my head.
Strong words??? That just shows how eager I am to prove the Reault mechanic wrong.
It is not only on the track that Schumacher is great, apart from playing a lot of charity football matches he has given 10 million U.S Dollars in donation for the recent tsunami affected victims, a sum that no other sports person even got close to with their donations.
I am sure there are critics who say that if it weren't for Ferrari he wouldnt have accomplished as much as he has accomplished. But I would say that everyone is suffering from temporary amnesia. When Schumacher joined Ferrari in 1996 it was a very poor team. Despite this he wrung the neck of a very poor car and finished nothing less that 4th from 1996 except in 1998 where he missed 6 races due to an injury. He built ferrari around him.
Now coming to the low season in terms of his standards last year, afer years of trying out, Schumi was out of the championship by FIA(by trying to tamper with the rules) finally they succeeded. Ofcourse, this year when he does end up winning the championship I'll make sure that I wear a tee saying "ALONSO WHO???" and display it proudly.
Now for people who have any questions about his retirement let me quote what he said, "I love the sport, its in my blood to compete and fight, to try to beat my opponent and win. Thats what I'm living for, in a way. As long as I can compete, I am going no where."I guess that answers everything.
At 36, the oldest in the 2005 field a 15 year veteran of over 200 races, the driver who made Formula-1 his personal playground is still at the peak of superlative power and created two dimensions: MICHAEL (GOD) SCHUMACHER AND THE REST.
P.S-THIS WAS PUBLISHED IN MY COLLEGE MAGAZINE IN THE YEAR 2006. THE FORMULA-1 SEASON THAT ENDED PRIOR TO MY WRITING THIS , SAW FERNANDO ALONSO BECOME THE WORLD CHAMPION FOR THE FIRST TIME.THIS WAS WRITTEN WHEN SCHUMACHER NEVER LOOKED LIKE RETIRING AT THE END OF 2006 SEASON.SAD THAT HE HAS RETIRED NOW. I have always considered this to be the best article I have ever written not because it was published or anything but it made a lot of anti-Schumacher people fight with me about what I have written. Fighting (not literally ofcourse) over this issue has always given me immense pleasure.There is nothing like supporting Michael and I'm very proud that I have been doing this ever since I started watching F-1 way back in 1999.