August 23, 1991: A young man named Schumacher makes his Formula 1 debut

In 1991 the writer was waiting for the start of third grade, and was playing with the Commodore 64. Many readers of our site were not yet born, many others were only halfway through their 'career' as Formula 1 enthusiasts.

By 'cell phones' they still only meant police vans. No SMS, the PC was still running in DOS, there was no news on the Internet (at least for us mere mortals).

In international sport, Boris Becker and Steffi Graf were still winning. Gianni Bugno repeated the Road Cycling World Championship, Alberto Tomba won in skiing, the Milan of the Invincibles took home the Scudetto without losing a single match. Yes, the matches: either you watched them at the stadium or the radio saved you on Sundays, waiting for 90° Minute.

All this to remain in the pure sporting field, obviously.

The minivans? But no, four of us went on holiday with a Fiat Uno, and there was enough luggage for everyone. A liter of petrol cost about 800 lire. Now, with €0,41, perhaps the car will start.

In Formula 1 everything was different. Ayrton Senna mastered and was about to win his third World Championship with Mclaren, Alain Prost was on a collision course with Ferrari and ready for a sabbatical. The single-seaters were the essence of speed, still no huge electronics, the steering wheel performed the main function for which it was designed, steering. No manettini, DRS, KERS, dozens of buttons and things like that. Some still shifted with the lever and pressed three pedals. A whole different F1.

SPA, NATURAL THEATER
We raced, like today, at Interlagos, Monza, Montreal, Suzuka. And in Spa.

Precisely Spa where, twenty years ago, a young German with great hopes, coming from the Mercedes prototypes, made himself noticed at the wheel of the very green Jordan n°32, replacing the Frenchman Bertrand Gachot, arrested in London for an argument with a taxi driver.

This is how Michael Schumacher began his adventure in Formula 1, with a stunning seventh place in qualifying on his debut (Jordan was certainly not a top team even if it was on the rise) and a scream of expletive 200 meters into the race due to a burnt clutch .

That show, short but intense, was quite trying for a young Flavio Briatore, Team Manager of the then Benetton-Ford. From green (Jordan) to yellow (Benetton) it was a moment or rather two weeks, those away from the Italian GP in Monza, with Schumi scoring points for the first time (5th) ahead of his now elderly teammate, but still three-time World Champion, Nelson Piquet.

Again in Spa, in 1992, it was the site of Schumi's first victory, in a race with mixed dry/wet conditions as often happens in the woods of the Ardennes. First in front of the future world champion Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese, both with the elusive Williams-Renault.

Spa again, in 2004, was the scene of the last World Title, the seventh, of the German's career.

Finally, Spa, 2011, will be the setting for the twentieth anniversary of Michael's debut, which will be celebrated with a special cap and a drink offered at the Paddock on Saturday evening.
20 years in the round, seventeen seasons of F1 in between. (The anniversary is in fact that of the debut, not of the twentieth season given the three 'misses' from 2007 to 2009 of the first retreat). Years full of successes (91), World Cups (7) and many other numbers that it is not necessary to list.

FOAM BETWEEN PRESENT AND PAST

20 years go by quickly..

Schumacher is (together with Barrichello, debutant in 1993) the link between a Formula 1 that no longer exists and the current one.

His return is not retracing, as we well know, the glories of the Ferrarista era. Not that he couldn't have expected it, because that period will probably be unapproachable by any other team-driver combination decades from now. However, it is jarring to see the results of these two years of Mercedes GP compared with the previous ones of Benetton and Ferrari.

Many dismiss it all with the weight of the Identity Card, accentuating its effects (even ironically), others take advantage of the bad moment to motivate the theory of the great Bluff, of the Schumacher relative of Gaston (the one from Disney) for almost 15 years straight.

Let's start by saying that now, in 2011, it's no longer like 1991. A seventh time with Jordan, on his debut, on the most difficult track in the World Championship, meant 'something'. Now, between tyres, Kers, DRS, we no longer have the concept of 'big time'. The role of the driver becomes more and more marginal and, perhaps, only the comparison with the teammate gives merit or demerit to the individual driver.

And here the criticisms resurface and bring other theses to the anti-Schumacherian theories. How is it possible to see the Kaiser beaten by Rosberg? Is this the true value of the seven-time World Champion? Like when queuing at the post office, colleagues and ex-adversaries have been arriving for months to bring their contribution to the defeat, in a sort of personal satisfaction that they would never have thought they could take away a few years ago. From Lauda, ​​who every two or three months feels the intimate need to say the same thing (about everyone, among other things, not just Schumi), to Jacques Villeneuve who, with sly diplomacy, says 'everything is normal if he runs almost like Rosberg, on the other hand he was a tenth faster than Irvine and Barrichello'. We would like to ask him why he was also faster than Schumacher by (only) a tenth, at the time of Williams-Renault against Ferrari in 1997. Jacques has a predisposition to criticize everything that is Ferrari. Not even Raikkonen (the last Red World Champion, in case anyone had forgotten) was spared.

THE WEIGHT OF TIME
Age, objectively, matters to everyone and in everything. Schumacher like anyone else cannot be exempted from the law of the time. It is inevitable that, no matter how trained, his performances cannot be compared to those given when he was, for example, 26 years old (the current age of Nico Rosberg, at which Michael's second title came in 1995). And Schumi himself is well aware of this. In fact, he has admitted several times that he is no longer as fresh as he was at 30, and God forbid. Those who say that the registry office is irrelevant speak for convenience, they want to make people believe that Schumi's value has always ultimately been 'this', and not 'that', and that the rest was just fate, torpedoes, enslaved comrades and so on saying.

By focusing on this, we could turn the question on its head (which no one does). How is it possible that, in 2011, a 42-year-old driver is STILL able to lap at the levels of a 26-year-old, with the same car? And to remain in front of others who, precisely by registry, could very well be his children? 'Eh, but in qualifying the deficit is 175-0 for Rosberg'. Very true, but are the qualifications still what they used to be? (those of the 12 laps, so to speak). Let's talk about the race, where the German paced his young teammate very well. This Live Timing in hand, not based on the writer's lucubrations. Mistakes? Everyone does it. Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso, Massa. Only Button, among the best, is free from distractions.

Speaking of other 'old guys', we remember a 41-year-old Nigel Mansell at the wheel of Williams-Renault and winner in Adelaide in '94, before retiring the following year after two races in Mclaren, and Alain Prost, winner of the 1993 title at the age of 38 with a Williams who, by his own admission, was 'a second faster than the rest of the field'.

Returning to the present day, we do not have reliable proof of age to evaluate Schumacher's performance, because the closest 'older' people left the track a few years early. Hakkinen, the same age as Michael and a few months older, dropped out at the end of 2001 at the age of 32. He tested a Mclaren in a test at the end of 2006, achieving times that were about three seconds faster than the leaders. Villeneuve, 40 years old today, is unlikely to return to the track.

BECAUSE'?
It is therefore easy, after an unhappy year and a half, to ask ourselves the 'why' of Schumacher's choice to return to F1. Someone had already asked this when he signed with Mercedes, predicting results of this type. What, perhaps, had not been taken into account was the possible technical debacle of the former BrawnGP.
Excluding the economic factor (we refuse to think that Schumi needed further salaries...), perhaps all that remains is a man's need to return to 'his' world, after three years spent jumping from a parachute and running (and falling getting very hurt) on a motorbike. It would also be interesting to know what really happened between Michael and Ferrari, to justify a decision so unpopular that it was deleted from the preferences of many (but not all) Rossi fans.
After the vanished possibility of returning to the wheel of the Red in 2009 to replace Felipe Massa, perhaps the 'closure' of Ferrari for a place in 2010 meant that the agreement with old friend Brawn was born. But these are all suppositions, the truth belongs only to Michael, Ferrari and Ross.

But the past doesn't matter anymore. All we have left is a 42-year-old who has gotten back into the game despite his fame and titles at the risk of ruining his reputation, against angry kids who want to systematically oust him from the collective imagination of 'King' at every match. For that alone, he deserves respect, more than he has received since he returned. Not everyone would be capable of it.

From Friday we'll be racing in Spa. Who knows, maybe the veteran won't give us a few pearls. Happy Anniversary!

Alessandro Secchi
F1Grandprix.it