When it was announced that seven-times Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher was to make a comeback to grand prix racing, there was a frenzy of media and fan interest. But now that interest is fading rapidly, and the only topic of conversation regarding the German is why he is visibly struggling to match the pace, not only of the front runners, but also that of his less-experienced team-mate, Nico Rosberg.
Schumacher has been away from the sport for three years and it was inevitable that it would take some time for him to re-adjust, especially since the cars and tyres are very different to those that he was used to when he last raced and testing is severely limited these days. But even so, his performances have surprised everyone, not least Schumacher himself.
The level of competition is far stronger now than it was when he was last racing, with existing world champions Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso all in competitive machinery, as are proven winners Felipe Massa, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. If Schumacher had been teamed with any one of these drivers no one would have been surprised for them to give him a run for his money, especially in the early races. What no one expected was that he would be consistently out-qualified and out-raced by Rosberg, who has shown promise in the past but had yet to deliver top-class performances on a consistent basis.
For some reason, Rosberg is managing to get more out of the Mercedes car than his illustrious team-mate, who admits that he is struggling at the moment. This is not a situation that he is used to and he was clearly in a mild state of shock after the first Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi. That situation has not improved and Schumacher is far from the confident, sometimes apparently arrogant, character he used to be.
This is not the glorious return that was expected. Schumacher has never been out-performed by a team-mate before on such a consistent basis. Once or twice, maybe, as when Rubens Barrichello had the measure of him at Ferrari, but order was always swiftly restored. For some reason, this time, it’s not happening.
Schumacher has tried to do what he did at Ferrari and make the team his. One of is first moves was to request that he swap numbers with Rosberg from four to three, citing that he preferred to have an uneven number for luck. Rubbish. He wanted to show the world that he was the lead driver in the team. He also apparently insisted that the cars were swapped over in the pit garages, preferring his to be on one side rather than the other. Prima donna moves like this haven’t gone down well though, especially with hard-working mechanics, and it seems he isn’t getting his own way quite the same as he did at Ferrari.
And in the meantime, Rosberg is just getting on with his job, not over-driving to try and prove a point and not letting himself get fazed by the arrival of a multiple world champion alongside him. He currently lies second in the world championship with Schumacher down in joint ninth. There are some people who are already saying that if things don’t improve, Michael might decide that the neck injury which prevented him from driving for Ferrari last year when Felipe Massa was injured, might suddenly recur, giving him an excuse to slip quietly away.
It would be an ignominious way to finally end a glorious career, but it might yet happen.
