Michael Schumacher will not be F1 World Driver’s Champion this year. That much is certain since he was mathematically eliminated from the championship after the Italian Grand Prix. To add insult to injury Ferrari are nowhere near the top of the constructors championship either. All this has many people speaking of the end of an era. For some fans this era couldn’t end soon enough. The domination of Ferrari and the consecutive championships for Schumacher have left many fans with a sense of boredom and predictability.
Having one team dominate for so long can bring any sport to its knees. This year has seen the rise of Renault’s reliability and McLaren’s pure pace. We saw the flash of what was when the Ferrari in the hands of Schumacher was 2 seconds a lap faster than anyone else on the track at Imola. I like to think it was the ghost of Ferrari past that was urging on the prancing horse on it’s home turf but a comment from Jock Clear in Montreal during a casual conversation at the open house on Thursday makes me think if there was a higher power at work then it was more like Maradona’s ‘hand of God’ than anything else.
I’m glad to see other teams at the top but for me personally I’m sad to think Schumacher might be leaving the sport soon. Ferrari I could give a toss about, they are hitting a low like any dominating team from the past. If we know anything about F1 it is that the peaks are high and the valleys are deep and no team will dominate for too long.
My only sadness from the demise and inevitable departure of Schumacher is that he is my last link to nostalgic F1 that I know for myself. I started watching F1 in 1985 when I attended a race in Montreal. What a way to get hooked! I admire the history if F1, in fact it’s part of the allure of the sport for me personally but the history I saw with my own eyes is what keeps my mind occupied with F1 for too much.
In only 7 years from 1985 there was a new kid on the block challenging the greats like Senna and Prost. Schumacher is the tie-in for me to those legends, especially Senna. F1 fans were dealt a cruel blow on May 1st, 1994 when we were denied the passing of the torch from one great warrior to another great future champion. I’m not saying Senna was going to lose the WDC to Schumacher that year but the writing was on the wall that we were going to see only a few more years of Senna’s brilliant talent and that Schumacher was the future. Those first 3 races in 1994 are etched in my memory as if they happened yesterday. The restart at Imola with Senna bearing down on Schumacher going into Tamburello … how could it end like that? Why?
That battle in 1994 is an unrealized event in F1 that for me is now coming to a close. It’ll never be resolved, and maybe, in a silly way, through Schumacher’s career I’ve been able to hang on to those memories of F1 I have for myself, the ones I witnessed with my own eyes. Once Schumacher hangs up his racing boots that chapter will be closed forever. He is my last link. How many active F1 drivers can say they were on the same track as the great Senna? Barrichello was but the amount of tarmac between Rubinho and Senna was quite a bit more than Senna and Schumacher in those early 1994 races.
Yes the link will be broken soon, even if Schumacher pulls a Senna (circa 1993) and has a few brilliant races in an inferior car for me the era has ended … but … I look forward to the next.
If there is one other thing we’ve learned about F1 it’s that legends come and go and we have our own personal connections to each era, the memories and stories we cherish, but the next legend is around the corner … and I’m not saying his name is Kimi … 
