Does the Schu still fit?

Yes, I've used the headline before, but this time he's back for certain. With a German team and a German team-mate to boot, not to mention Ross Brawn. Still has his red helmet though. With F1 season starting, my blog's Formula 1 score widget will once again have enough work on its hands.

I'm talking about seven-time Formula One Championship winner Michael Schumacher. Members of the Royal family of Bahrain, Sheikhs, photographers, fans all queued up at a Mercedes Benz dealrship in Bahrain to get a glimpse of the supremely confident driver who, this time around, wasn't packing just a better record than his fellow competitors, but also a number of years over the others. Having been away from the track for quite a while, Schumacher's return was least expected after his neck injury ruled out his plans to make a comeback for Ferrari. But the said injury was no match for the man and his drive to succeed, though he angered the Tifosi no end with his return with Mercedes. An irate Montezemolo even felt the need to take a not-so-subtle jab at Schumacher for this decision.

The Bahrain GP is merely a day away, and excitement is mounting with fans expecting a lot from him. The German daily Bild had "Schumiverse" splashed on the front page. They even went so far as to change the German flag to a Mercedes version :P . The man himself believes that the first race won't end in a win for them:



Mark Webber seems to concur with those views too. Webber thinks he won't be able to dominate the track with 60-70 second victories like in the past. But that's a given considering the drastic change in rules over the years. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

In Friday's practice session, Schumi was third fastest, half a second behind his fellow German racer Nico Rosberg. Whether he can better that come Sunday or whether he'll make a fool of himself remains to be seen. As far as records go, he has no equal among the current lineup of F1 drivers. However, this lineup is stronger than most that he has faced. Cars from other teams are more or less equal to the task. All said and done, he hasn't come back to the sport for something as simple as money. He's back for the love of competition, and no one can doubt what Schumacher can achieve with his tireless will to win.

Alain Prost, Niki Lauda and Nigel Mansell have made successful comebacks before. There's no reason Schumi can't. I'm praying it rains soon on some F1 circuit this season just so we can see if Schumi is still the Rain-meister.

Today's qualifying will be more or less an indicator as to whether the "Schu still fits" ;)

Bahrain Breaks the Ferrari Jinx

The infamous record of 1980-1981 still stands for Ferrari. They'll be heaving a huge sigh of relief over at Maranello. Raikkonen took 6th today for the team (taking 3 championship points with that position) while Massa finished out of the points cursing his KERS all the while.

Brawn GP, of course have had a stupendous start this season, and they stole the show today too, with Jenson Button taking the top spot on the podium.

Mclaren's fate still remains to be seen with an FIA hearing for the team and Hamilton (yeah, and you never knew what you said was a lie, did you Mr. Hamilton, what a joke) on the 29th of April.

The funny part today was Barrichello stuck behind the Renault. He kept waving his left hand at Piquet as if he'd move over for him.

A record Ferrari would rather not have....

One more F1 qualifying session (Bahrain) down, and the Ferrari's have got themselves in rather dismal 8th and 10th positions on the starting grid. At this rate they're looking at the worst season start they could ever have had with not a single point from the first three races.

Ferrari last failed to score points in the first three races in 1981 (and in the year before), the drivers then were Gilles Villeneuve and Didier Pironi were driving for the team, and the 3 litre 12 cylinder that they drove was in no way competitive.

Mix-ups have been plentiful this season, with Raikkonen being let out on extreme wet tyres on a bone dry track at Malaysia and a miscalculation on Ferrari's part (pure arrogance) that put Massa at 16th position on the starting grid. One need not even be reminded about last season's horrendous pitstop blunder where Massa was let go from the pits with his refuelling hose still attached.

The days of Jean Todt, Ross Brawn and Michael Schumacher's title-winning Italian machine look like they're long gone. The legendary Austrian driver, Niki Lauda, even said that this heralded a return to Ferrari's " spaghetti culture", a reference to the way in which Ferrari used to depend more on passion that performance and reliability. And the current car, the F60, has displayed neither (of the latter two). Out of the 6 times its been driven (3 races and by 2 drivers in each race), the car has retired thrice and never finished at anything better than 9th place.

Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo is flying in for the F1 Bahrain race on Sunday. But things don't look too good, what with Ferrari's F1 boss Stefano Domenicali saying, "We knew we would suffer in China, and in all probability we will be suffering again here this weekend."