On the fast track, to the summit

NIRMAL SHEKAR

In every sport, perhaps once in a generation, there comes a performer who is so far ahead of the competition, who is so much better than his contemporaries, that the only meaningful comparisons are the ones that are to be made cutting across boundaries defined by eras.

In golf, in the last few years, the Tiger Woods phenomenon has so excited the critics that several experts have already anointed him as the all-time No. 1, although the young man is not even halfway into his celebrated career.

If you cannot say as much about our own little genius from Mumbai, Sachin Tendulkar, whose exploits in the world of cricket have made everybody - including the late Don Bradman - sit up and take notice, then there can be no doubt at all that in Tendulkar's case too, all logical comparisons will have to cut across generations.

Then again, if Woods and Tendulkar, for all their achievements and skills, are still some way from the summit of their sport, then there is one giant superstar in the world of Formula One racing who not only stands very near the summit but, more importantly, promises to leave behind a peak of his own that even a very great driver in a future generation will take a very long time and effort in attempting to scale.

Michael Schumacher, still only 32, won his fourth Formula One drivers' championship this season, a year in which he also became the winningest driver in the the history of the sport when he triumphed in the Belgian Grand Prix. It was the 52nd victory of the German's career and it took him past Alain Prost of France, who won 51 races.

The only Formula One driver who has won more championships is Juan Manuel Fangio of Argentina, who has five titles to his credit. But given his age, and the fact that he has hit it off wonderfully well with his team, Ferrari, Schumacher is widely expected to match Fangio's record as early as in 2002.

"I would say that Michael is capable of winning at least seven titles. He is certainly the best driver around," says Eddie Irvine, a very good driver himself.

Prost, as good an analyst of the sport as there is today, believes that the master driver from Germany may go on to win "five or six".

But what everybody - fellow drivers, critics, former champions, officials - seems to agree upon is that Schumacher, at the moment, is peerless. No other active driver in the sport can get so much out of a car as consistently and as effortlessly as does the German.

Gerhard Berger of Austria, Schumacher's former Benetton team-mate and now Director of Motorsport at BMW, says that statistics are a true measure of greatness and in the German's case they say enough about how good he was.

Yet, Berger adds, "How do you judge it? Normally the way is to look at statistics and see who won how many races...." He trails off.

The pause, the reservations, the question marks, all these are brought up by the fact that Berger believes that there is only one man who - for all that Schumacher has achieved, for all that he might yet accomplish - may perhaps deserve to be spoken of as a driver who was even better than the German.

That is the late Brazilian Ayrton Senna, who died following an accident on the Imola track in Italy, at the start of the year (1994) in which Schumacher won his first drivers' title.

"With Ayrton I was very impressed by his charisma," says Berger. "He was a very, very special person who stays in my heart more than any other driver I met in this game. I think it is very difficult to say who is best. But Michael is an outstanding professional."

Of that - Schumacher's professionalism - there can be no doubts at all. Joining a struggling Ferrari team in 1996, Schumacher, with tremendous support from an inspired team of mechanics, has brought about a revolution in the sport's most celebrated constructors camp.

"You can't believe how wonderful these guys are, how much we have all stuck together, in good times and in bad times. We have such a great crew and such a good team that I'm really in love with them all and it's so much fun to work with them," says Schumacher of the Ferrari team.

Indeed, the famous Scuderia red-shirts and the suave, gifted German driver are made for each other. And, together, over the next few seasons, they seem set to rewrite quite a few records.

* * *

Facts at a glance

First Grand Prix
Belgium 1991 Jordan (Did not Finish) 
First Grand Prix
7th - Belgium 1991 
First Front Row 

Spain 1992 Benetton
First Pole Position
Monaco 1994 Benetton 
First Points
5th Italy 1991 Benetton 
First Podium
3rd Mexico 1992 Benetton
First Fastest Lap
Belgium 1992 Benetton 
First Victory
Belgium 1992 Benetton 
World Championship best
1st 1994 (92 points) and 1995 (102 points), Benetton 
Most World Championship points 
102 points 1995 Benetton 
Single Seaters (1988)
1988 German Formula Konig Champion, 
6th German FF1600, 2nd European FF1600.
Formula 3 and Sportscars (1989-1991) 

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Features
Previous : Gas with a safety switch
Next     : An ailurophobe?