ATLAS F1   Volume 6, Issue 37
		History in the Making Schumacher's Drive to the Top of the Stats
		by Barry Kalb, Hong Kong

Michael Schumacher often said he doesn't care about records and stats. When he broke down in tears, after matching the winning record of Ayrton Senna, his idol, he didn't look like someone who doesn't give a damn... Either way, Schumacher has taken one more giant step into the top of the records table of Formula One. He is now safely placed among the greatest of the sport and his own records will take years, if not decades, to surpass. Journalist Barry Kalb had been studying the achievements of the greatest drivers in F1 for several years now. He presents, exclusively for Atlas F1, the numbers and analysis of why Schumacher'd drive to the top is history in the making Statistical Tables: The Greatest of All in Numbers Table 1: the record holders Table 2: drivers with 20 or more wins Table 3: drivers with 10 or more wins, or wc Table 4: other notable drivers Table 5: rankings of top-performing drivers in the major categories Michael Schumacher's win in Italy last Sunday not only put him back into contention for the 2000 world championship, it marked an enormous step forward in his drive into the Formula One history books. More than a third championship is now at stake for Schumacher, sweet as that achievement alone would be for his long-deprived Ferrari team. His finish at Monza was his 41st grande epreuve victory, bringing him into a tie with Ayrton Senna for second most career wins. The only thing standing between him and the number one spot are the 51 wins of Alain Prost. Winning ten more races would be a prodigious feat for any normal driver: only 24 men have scored 10 or more championship wins in their entire careers. Yet if Schumacher's car remains competitive and his luck holds, he could conceivably catch Prost by the end of next season. Schumacher in fact is already at or within striking distance of undisputed first or second place in every major category of achievement: wins, pole positions, points scored, podium finishes, fastest laps. Nor are his achievements due simply to the greater number of races per season or the greater number of points awarded a winner during the current era: in accomplishments per race started, he currently ranks no lower than sixth in all categories - ahead of Prost and Senna in almost every case. Since entering Formula One halfway through the 1991 season, the 31-year-old German has shown himself to rank among the greatest eight or ten Grand Prix drivers of all time. He is one of the masters in the art of controlling a racing machine at high speed, in the dry or the wet. He is a master of race strategy and tactics. He is supremely competitive, which partly accounts for the extraordinary string of controversies he's been embroiled in, but it also makes for some very exciting racing. Schumacher racks up critics almost the way he racks up race wins. This year, the criticism has centered on a couple of instances when, from pole position, he cut in front of the number two man at the start. The race stewards have concluded that his maneuver was within the rules, however much it might have angered drivers like David Coulthard. In fact, the German is hardly the first top driver to take full advantage of the rules-and to see how far they can be bent. Stirling Moss once told the writer Ken Purdy: "…I noticed that on a certain circuit I needed to use about a foot, just about 12 inches of the pull-off zone for coming into the pits, if I wanted to go really and truly fast through a bend. So, knowing I could do it only once and get away with it, I waited until I needed one really quick lap, and I came through that bend flat out…and I took the extra foot; and immediately…I made a signal that I was coming into the pits, I fiddled with the gear-level, not lifting off on the throttle…but pretending to pull and tug a little as though it was jammed, and then just as I knew I was flat-out in that gear…I pulled my hand in, shoved the thing into the next gear…I could think of a good many things like that one can do." Schumacher, like Moss, is famous not only for his sheer driving skills, but for thinking his way through a race, often winning in an inferior car as a result. A driver like this is almost bound to attract criticism, and envy, along the way. It's lonely at the top. Motor racing is famously unpredictable, of course, as this season has demonstrated. Schumacher's drive toward the top of the historical charts could be derailed by any number of factors. His car could again become uncompetitive. He could suffer another injury, like the broken foot at Silverstone that put him out of combat for half of the 1999 season. He could, especially if he wins this year's championship, surprise everyone and retire early, or decide to coast during the final two years of his contract with Ferrari -although he does not seem to get into a racing car with any intention other than to win. All the great drivers ended their careers, whether through retirement, injury or death, still fighting if not necessarily winning. It would be extremely surprising to see Michael Schumacher dogging it. The Records Statistics are a cold way to judge something as subjective as motor racing skill, especially when the car plays so critical a role in a driver's performance. Yet driving skill and driving achievements tend to correlate pretty closely, and statistics are the only way we have to compare drivers of different eras. By one admittedly statistical measure, Schumacher is already the most successful Formula One driver of the modern era. If you calculate the drivers' average ranking in all ten major categories (see the accompanying tables), Schumacher ranks highest of all. Prost is in second place, Juan Manuel Fangio in third. One doesn't have to resort to statistical juggling, however, to take the measure of Schumacher's accomplishments. Following is an abbreviated look at the rankings. The full statistics are in the accompanying tables. Wins First Second Prost 51 Senna 41 Schumacher 41 Poles First Second Fourth Fifth Senna 65 Jim Clark 33 Prost 33 Nigel Mansell 32 Juan Fangio 29 Schumacher 29 Podiums First Second Prost 106 Senna 80 Schumacher 80 Fastest laps First Third Prost 41 Schumacher 41 Mansell 30 Points Comparing the number of points scored by various drivers is complicated by several factors. First, the scoring system has changed several times. Between 1950 and 1959, the winner received eight points, one point was given for fastest lap, only the first five finishers were awarded points. In 1960, the fastest-lap point was eliminated, and 6th place began to receive points. In 1961, the winner's award was raised from eight points to nine, and in 1991, it was raised again, to 10. Second, during the early years of the modern championship, two drivers could share the same car, and each would gain half of any points scored. At Monza in 1956, for example, Peter Collins turned his Ferrari over to teammate Fangio after the latter's steering had broken, allowing the Argentinean to score just enough points to take his fourth world championship. Third, during many seasons, only a certain number of races counted towards the championship, so the actual points scored and the points with which a driver officially finished the season have frequently been different. There is no practical way to strip out the effects of shared points. But for comparative purposes, it is easy enough to make allowances for the other variables in the scoring system. I have first of all counted total points scored by each driver, which gives a table of "actual" points. Next, I have added an appropriate one or two points for each pre-1991 win, one point for any pre-1960 6th place, and subtracted any fastest-lap points from the 1950-59 seasons, to provide a "theoretical" total. Points (actual) First Second Third Prost 798.5 Schumacher 648 Senna 614 Points (theoretical) First Second Third Prost 842.5 Schumacher 648 Senna 640 There are those who will argue that, the race calendar now longer than it used to be, Schumacher has had a lot more races in which to score points and poles and the like. Those people should take a look at the achievements-per-start tables. Schumacher's per-start achievements are greater than Prost's and Senna's in almost every case, and greater than almost everyone else's. (Fangio, in case anyone doubts the validity of this measure, ranks first in all categories on a per-start basis.) Wins / start First Second Third Fourth Fangio 47.06% Alberto Ascari 40.6% Clark 34.72% Schumacher 29.29% Poles / start First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Fangio 56.86% Clark 45.83% Ascari 45.16% Senna 40.37% Moss 24.24% Schumacher 20.71% Podiums / start First Second Third Fangio 68.63% Farina 60.61% Schumacher 57.14% (actual) Points / start First Second Third Fangio 5.44 Schumacher 4.63 Ascari 4.56 (theoretical) Points / start First Second Third Fangio 5.95 Ascari 5.03 Schumacher 4.63 F.Laps / start First Second Third Fourth Fangio 45.10% Clark 38.89% Ascari 38.71% Schumacher 29.29% The Future Schumacher's per-start averages might go up or down before he hangs up his helmet. His total number of wins, poles, podiums, points and fastest laps will inevitably rise, assuming he is able to continue competing. He will almost certainly reach undisputed second place, and very possibly first place, in wins, points and podium finishes. He is already tied for first in fastest laps. It seems unlikely anyone will ever surpass Senna's 65 poles, but there is every reason to believe that before he retires, Schumacher will score the five additional poles that will put him in second place in this category. There are people who don't like Schumacher, and nothing he does will ever please them. There are those who will argue that if Senna had not been killed in 1994, Schumacher's record would look different. Perhaps. But motor racing is full of what-if's. What records might have been set if Jimmy Clark's Lotus hadn't fallen apart and killed him in 1968? How different might Prost's statistics look if Gilles Villeneuve had lived to challenge him in the 1980s? Who would have been champion in '98 if Coulthard hadn't handed the first race to Mika Hakkinen on a platter, and hadn't later precipitated the incident at Spa that crippled Schumacher's car while the latter was running away with the race? What might the 1999 season have looked like if Schumacher hadn't missed half of it? In Formula One, what you see is what you get. Anybody who appreciates the fine art of motor racing knows that to watch Michael Schumacher behind the wheel of a Formula One car is to see racing genius at work. And indeed, the man's career record confirms that he is one of the best of all time.

Barry Kalb	© 2000 Kaizar.Com, Incorporated.
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Barry Kalb is a veteran journalist of 20 years' experience (the Washington Star, CBS News, Time Magazine) and a motor racing fan - especially Formula One - for almost 40 years. He currently resides in Hong Kong.