[Scarlet_Rider]

To commemorate 70 years of F1, Formula1.com conducted a fan vote for the most influential person in F1.

The results are out and the winner is Michael Schumacher!!







Image showing the names, categories and progress of the poll that was conducted over the last 10 days.

Why he was influencial?

Was an inspiration to millions of racers around the world – including many on the current grid.

Re-wrote F1 record books, becoming the first driver to match Fangio’s tally of five titles, before surpassing it and ultimately winning seven.

Pioneering fitness regime and unrivalled attention to detail in preparation – forced others to follow his lead and adopt same professional, committed approach.

Helped build ‘sleeping giant’ Ferrari into the ultimate winning machine, winning their first title in more than 20 years and captivating a new generation of fans in Italy, Germany and around the world.

Link to the article

[turbo]

Thoroughly well deserved.
A living legend.
One of the most dominant, yet fiercely competitive eras in the history of the sport.

[GTO]

My favourite F1 driver & the last one I have genuinely supported . Loved his driving, strategy, commitment, fitness & ability to build a team. Neither Alonso nor Vettel could win even 1 championship with Ferrari, though they joined Ferrari in a far superior stage as compared to the shoddy state it was in when Schumy joined. Michael's domination was so powerful that FIA had to change the rules! Equally, I'll be the first to say that Schumacher's dashing into competitors (Jacques, Damon) was cheap. His tactics left a black mark on his legacy. Who can forget the stupid block during qualifying in Monaco 2006?

Not without flaws, yet the greatest . He is on my office wall too.

[RaceHorse]

The moment when someone says F1 or read about F1, the first name that comes to mind is Schumacher.

He was a childhood hero for many, collecting and purchasing wall posters of his and pasting all over the room, just to dream of driving those cars was something different.

May be its the media in childhood, whatever the news we read about F1 it was never without mention of him. No doubt he chosen as the most influential. I pray god for his recovery soon.

[rahulcmoulee]

Schumacher is the name that immediately springs to mind when you hear F1. Even many non F1 fans know him and he brought loads of fans into the sport. The most accomplished driver in my opinion. No one could ever bring a team together like he did. He has produced so many magical moments on track and completely deserves the tag.

[ABHI_1512]

Influential- well he might be voted that way but he is certainly not the greatest for sure. Had Ayrton Senna been alive today, he might as be voted as the most influential as well since he is certainly the greatest for me. Senna had more accomplished drivers fighting alongside him then Schumacher. He and Prost almost fought for the podium despite being from the same team while I still remember how Barrichello was ordered from the pit to side over and let Schumacher win and which forced rule changes in F1. Schumacher always had the best car while his teammates had to be contend with the lesser one. And the less said about the sportsmanship of Schumacher, the better. But yes, he did have a following and probably his being bed ridden now influenced a lot many votes here.

[Revmatch99]

The best driver in terms of complete package, brought the right people in the team, worked with the mechanics, engineers and treated them like family and even remembered their birthdays and most of all he NEVER complained about the team like Alonso did even when he lost the championship in 2006 due to mechanical failure and when he had to drive bad cars like the '96 Ferrari. He changed the game in terms of fitness, no driver was on his level when it comes to fitness in the 90s and this pushed everyone to get better and the reason why driver fitness is a top priority now.

For me he will be the greatest driver of all time just because he left a winning team and rejected offers from Williams and Mclaren to help build Ferrari back up to Championship winners, no other driver has turned down the offer to win guaranteed championships to go build a team that was struggling.

Also his driving style was on the limit every lap of the race, he set up his car to have more oversteer he could predict when the car would get sideways and make minor corrections mid corner, he could do qualifying laps every lap of the race and get out of the car looking like he just took a nice nap, this showed how he changed the game when it comes to fitness.

Not to forget the insane drives he had in the rain like 1996 Spanish GP lapping 4 seconds faster than the entire field and many other brilliant drivers like Silverstone 1998, the brilliance of Schumacher as a driver and the management of Jean Todt and Ross Brawn and the dominant cars designed by Rory Byrne, Aldo Costa and Ross Brawn along with the brilliant strategy was arguably the best team in F1 (strategy is where Ferrari is struggling these days), they could win races which they shouldn't have won like Silverstone 1998 and 2004 Magny Cours.

Schumacher was the only person i was a "fan" of and my car liveries in Live For Speed always have this message on them:-


Get well soon Legend

[Revmatch99]

Originally Posted by ABHI_1512

Influential- well he might be voted that way but he is certainly not the greatest for sure. Had Ayrton Senna been alive today, he might as be voted as the most influential as well since he is certainly the greatest for me. Senna had more accomplished drivers fighting alongside him then Schumacher. He and Prost almost fought for the podium despite being from the same team while I still remember how Barrichello was ordered from the pit to side over and let Schumacher win and which forced rule changes in F1. Schumacher always had the best car while his teammates had to be contend with the lesser one. And the less said about the sportsmanship of Schumacher, the better. But yes, he did have a following and probably his being bed ridden now influenced a lot many votes here.

Senna is the most overrated driver in my opinion, i was honestly surprised when Schumacher won the votes against Senna, but i was happy as Schumi has been shown as the bad guy for far too long, people act like Senna is a saint when he drove incredibly dirty, and you say the votes may have been influenced by Schumi being bed ridden? Well you can say something similar about Senna then, he gets praised way too much because he tragically died while racing, and also due to the Senna documentary which portrayed him in a very good light while hiding his bad side. Also Senna always wanted to drive championship winning cars, that's the reason why he was driving for McLaren on race by race basis, he never wanted to build a team.

And you're saying Schumacher never had competition? Drove best cars all his life? so Alonso, Hakkinen and Raikkonen are not good drivers according to you? he dragged the '94 Benetton to the championship despite having race bans and Williams having the best car at the later part of the Season and in the early years he was close to the top runners and even beating them in an inferior Benetton. In '94,'95 Williams had the faster car, in 2000 it was close between Schumi and Mika and 2003 they changed the rules to stop Ferrari winning but they still won although it was a close season,2005 rules changed again to completely stop Ferrari domination he 2006 Renault had the faster car at the beginning but Ferrari closed the gap at the end of the season while Schumacher put some incredible drives till the very end even after he knew he would not win the championship, like his final race in Brazil where he fell to dead last and nearly a lap down but went on to overtake nearly the entire field to finish 4th putting fastest lap after fastest lap and remember this was Schumacher out of his prime against prime Alonso.

Favoured by the team? Obviously the team was built around Michael he brought in Brawn and Byrne to the team and build it around himself and thats how you win championships, having 2 number 1 drivers can lead to chaos just like 2007 Mclaren and last year at Ferrari.

Senna was a great driver he could drive inferior cars to race wins, but so could Schumacher on top of that Schumacher had the technical know how to help the engineers develop the cars, he used to treat team members like family and was incredibly good at team building, he was smart and analytical and also changed the game when it comes to fitness, Senna was a raw talent but Schumacher was the complete package.


I'll just attach some videos of Senna doing questionable driving below not including the time he took out Prost deliberately

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbNLHGJUGTQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncj4WL8C8eE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIr1EJa7TP0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-4qD9clvL4

[Scarlet_Rider]

Originally Posted by Revmatch99

Senna is the most overrated driver in my opinion, i was honestly surprised when Schumacher won the votes against Senna, but i was happy as Schumi has been shown as the bad guy for far too long, people act like Senna is a saint when he drove incredibly dirty, and you say the votes may have been influenced by Schumi being bed ridden? Well you can say something similar about Senna then, he gets praised way too much because he tragically died while racing, and also due to the Senna documentary which portrayed him in a very good light while hiding his bad side. Also Senna always wanted to drive championship winning cars, that's the reason why he was driving for McLaren on race by race basis, he never wanted to build a team.

Well said. I feel it was the media, who usually portrayed Senna as the hero and Schumacher as the villain that resulted in this sort of impression being formed. When it comes to collisions, everyone talks mostly about Schumacher's incidents with Hill and Villeneuve but very few talk about Senna and Prost.

Everyone talks about Schumacher storming in the McLaren garage to confront Coulthard during the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix, but no one talks about Senna trying to punch Irvine in the face at the 1993 Japanese Grand Prix that too after winning the race.

Unlike most drivers who prefer to join teams with cars that are performing well, it takes real guts for a world champion to join a struggling team which other drivers like Prost had referred to their car as "truck" and got fired.

Coming to the fitness part, here is an interview where Pat Symonds, Schumacher's former engineer talks about how Schumacher focused on fitness in a scientific way like no other driver. Talk about sending blood samples for analysis during practice sessions on the track and comparing them with results of the blood samples taken while working out in the gym!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqK36PjvMls

[motorworks]

Originally Posted by ABHI_1512

Influential- well he might be voted that way but he is certainly not the greatest for sure. Had Ayrton Senna been alive today, he might as be voted as the most influential as well since he is certainly the greatest for me. Senna had more accomplished drivers fighting alongside him then Schumacher. He and Prost almost fought for the podium despite being from the same team while I still remember how Barrichello was ordered from the pit to side over and let Schumacher win and which forced rule changes in F1. Schumacher always had the best car while his teammates had to be contend with the lesser one. And the less said about the sportsmanship of Schumacher, the better. But yes, he did have a following and probably his being bed ridden now influenced a lot many votes here.

Could, should, had and have been etc doesnt matter. Senna was arguably the more talented racer, sort of a raw talent, most folks agree on that, but Schumacher was the synonym of German precision. He drove consistently well, built a team around him and he delivered on most occasions. So if you have a guy who delivers championship after championship, the team wouldnt be wrong in favouring him over his team mates. Were any of his team mates ever in the same league as him? Never. And I find this argument rather lame. Would one ferrari have significantly better parts and engine than the other? Sure, Schumacher would have always got preference for new parts, updated engines, strategies etc, because he led most years ahead of his team mate. Its not like Schumacher had a Ferrari and the other driver was driving around in a Jordan.

Stating that Schumacher was voted as the most influential person out of sympathy is pure ignorance. Rather, the logical reasoning for him being the most influential was simply because his rise coincided with the increase in viewership of F1 and his name was almost synonymous with F1 during the late 90s and early 2000s. People in third world countries who never heard of F1 did so only because there was this driver called Schumacher. Its almost like people knew Tour de France only because they knew Lance Armstrong, its another story that the cyclist had a disgraceful exit from the sport. And these F1 drivers are racing to win and get points, not win the Sportsman of the year award. In racing you are always going to have moments when one car is going to edge out the other or do something thats on the limit, so lets not kid around with sportsmanship topics, we rather be watching a game of Chess then.

[ABHI_1512]

Originally Posted by motorworks

Stating that Schumacher was voted as the most influential person out of sympathy is pure ignorance. Rather, the logical reasoning for him being the most influential was simply because his rise coincided with the increase in viewership of F1 and his name was almost synonymous with F1 during the late 90s and early 2000s. People in third world countries who never heard of F1 did so only because there was this driver called Schumacher.

What I meant is partly explained by you, may be my choice of words was wrong, never meant any disregard to him. Schumacher’s rise coincided with the increase in viewership and most of the voters were the millennials. His being on the bed doesn’t change the fact that he was almost single handedly instrumental in getting the viewerships of F1. In my book though, Ayrton Senna remains the greatest driver ever since I saw him in his full cry. But here, the talk is of influence, so may be Schumacher deserves that. It’s almost like the FIFA POLL where Maradona was voted the greatest ever of the last century and Pele relegated to the second position since the ones who voted saw Maradona the most and hence the result.

[DicKy]

The one who made me watch Formula 1, which as a child I derided as boring compared to WRC.

And when he retired, stopped following Formula 1.

When my school classmates listed out movie stars, cricketers, footballers and even WWE stars as their objects of worship, for me, I was only a fan of Michael Schumacher.

His was not just raw driving, he actually made the team work around him. Fine-tuning every aspect of the car and engaging in the intricacies, one could say he was the main reason for Formula one drivers to be seen as serious professional sportspersons.

Ofcourse not discounting Niki Lauda's approach to racing, but Michael Schumacher brought a whole more discipline to the sport. His physical fitness routine is legendary, and remember Narain Karthikeyan being awestruck, saying he could never match Schumacher's fitness regime or stamina.

If anyone doubts his influence, everyone knows how much of the common Indian public knows about Formula One. Right???

Go and ask any driver with 10 plus years of driving experience, just ask any cab driver, if they know who Michael Schumacher is. Chances are they won't know what Formula One is, but will tell that Michael Schumacher is a great racing driver.

[myavu]

Me too voted

I came to Formula 1 world back in 1998 watching Michael's driving and dedication. How he lifted a legendary team like Ferrari from close to 2 decades old slump to unparallel success (then). A true inspiration in all means.

I really wish and pray that we can see him again in his signature smile. Fingers tightly crossed.

Cheers!

[JojyKerala]

A rightly deserved honor for the legend. It's been 7 years since the accident and with all the advancement in medical technology, I am hoping that some day he will return.

Originally Posted by Revmatch99

Not to forget the insane drives he had in the rain like 1996 Spanish GP lapping 4 seconds faster than the entire field

Thank you for bringing up the Spanish GP - brought back a flood of memories. I believe this race is why I got hooked to Schumacher and F1. On a personal note, my top 5 of all-time would include Schumi, Senna, Vettel, Prost and Häkkinen.

[Arjun Bharadwaj]

For a non F1 fan like me(maybe simply due to lack of intelligence or patience to understand F1 well), Schumacher was like an equivalent to Tendulkar. Like the God of F1.