[360 Spyder]

Michael really is an awesome driver isn't he?

I got to watch another F1 race yesterday and he is simply amazing in the way he drives.

I have been a fan of F1 for quite sometime, but only recently have been able to really watch the races and see for myself his ability.

But a question comes to mind. (Don't shoot me...) Is it the car or him? I mean, without him being in a Ferrari, would he do as well as he is, or is the Ferrari allowing him to use his talent? What do you think?

 

[Dj Dirk]

it's the combination actually

he's been with Ferrari since 1996
he has builded up the car to his needs, he works with the same crew for years, they all know him well and know what he needs, and so on

 

[360 Spyder]

And it is an awesome combination. His domination of the podium shows that.

 

[DJ]

F1

It's not only the Ferrari and Schumi that tends to have a superiority over the other teams, it's a fact that Ferrari always is a mile ahead in having a car lately that's a good combination in speed, handling and just being rock-solid. It just keeps on going while the others end up in the gravel-trap or blow up their engine.
Whenever F1 regulations change Ferrari's always one of the first to have cars there to match the regulations. If we look at the McLaren team: similar budget but their cars hardly ever finished. Maybe their new car is a good evolution from the former and we can see some racing again. Dito for the Williams' and Renault, they have great cars and drivers, but always they have something going wrong for them.
As for the Honda-powered BAR of Sato: we saw that car's engine blow up on several occassions now, maybe they can start blaming Al-Qaeda for sabotaging it.
So you see it's not the fault of Ferrari being better, it's the fault of the others being worse.

 

[Rosso]

As Todt said, the other teams are making Ferrari and Schumi look better.

As stated previosly, Schumacher came in to the team in 1996 and built it up from practically ruins and being a mid-grid team. Now after years of work and bringing in the right people to work around him, the team has been pretty much perfected. Look where we are in the championship this year. Michael has won 10 of 11 races this season, Ferrari leads by more than double the points of the second placed constructor, Renault, and it seems Michael can work any strategy Ross wants him to run. Wow.

Plus, only michael can pull off what he did in Magny-Cours a couple of weekends ago(an arguable point, but really, who else would have been able to do that in that short of a time period?). Switching to a 4 stop strategy and creating a gap of over 20 seconds to allow for one extra pit stop and still come out with the lead over Alonso. That was probalby the most interesting race all season. Wow.

The car has been the class of the field all season. Only recently has the team been challenged by other teams, so really that shows me how much further ahead and above Ferrari are over the rest of the pitlane.

SO really i'd say a combination of both driver and car are really the driving force behind the championship winning team.