Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Goodall
Yeah but that's because Michael was there winning the other 7 titles so how could they have managed more if they weren't simply as gifted as him? I don't believe any non-Great driver could win 7 titles in any top sport - I'm not saying i think he's the best, i just find it hard to understand how people can't see him as a great driver? Fair enough he's struggling now, but so is everyone outside of the Ferrari's, Red Bulls & Mclarens - If Micahel was at Mclaren and shadowing Lewis the same way Button is, people would be slating him saying Lewis is proving how past it Michael is etc, but because it's Button people just say they have different styles  |
Good point - what is the definition of greatness?
As given to me - it's not what you've done, but what you've left behind. Fangio, Clark, Moss raised the game. They left behind techniques behind the wheel that were copied. Stewart raised the game by leaving behind a business approach to ones F1 career, and the focus on safety. Prost left behind the notion of winning a race at the slowest possible speed. Senna left behind levels of car control that allowed him to beat others, cadence acceleration, and levels of fitness that others had to copy. Schumacher has left behind a bunch of numbers to be beaten - but so did every one of the others mentioned above.
If you ask for greatness in any other walk of life, you will always find people who left behind something that changed the game, the perception of their professional discipline, or the way in which things were done for ever after. Newton, Einstein, Shankley, Wenger, Lord Hanson, Arkwright, Brunell, the list goes on. There were thousands of scientists, managers, industrialists, engineers who successfully made better 'numbers' than those mentioned, but none changed the game and left a legacy like those guys.
On which basis, for me, Schumacher is not great, just successful.