As I saw the rain come down in Budapest this morning, I thought to myself, 'yes, now we can see the Rain Master dominate.' Unfortunately our Champion was nowhere to be seen today, instead we were subject to watching this imposter race in the number 5 Ferrari.

Surely he was there, but why did we see someone who is supposed to be the 7-Time Formula 1 World Champion and best wet weather driver of all time flop in the puddles? Alright, I can accept that the Bridgestone tyres were not up to par with the Michelin wets, but inferior equipment never stopped the Rain Master from dominating in the wet before. Actually Schumacher has done rather poorly in the last few wet races we have witnessed hasn't he? Is he losing his prowess in the rain? That is not a question which I can answer today, rather I may never be able to. Michael pushed hard as he always does, we can not refute this, however he certainly was off his rain game today. Alright, now onto his silly errors...

Mistake number one came from Michael when he was driving too aggressively near the beginning of the race and lost his front wing in a collision with a Renault. This meant he had to come in and replace the damaged wing, further dropping down the running order.

Good strategy meant that Schumacher eventually made it back to the front but with intermediate tyres and a drying track whatever was he to do? Certainly coming in right away to switch to dry tyres may have been to bold, but when Ferrari saw that Pedro de la Rosa and Nick Heidfeld, both on dry weather tyres, were closing in quickly they certainly should have brought Michael in. If they had have done this early enough, Schumacher would have gotten out of the pits in front of Pedro at least. Ferrari did not however do this, why? Perhaps Ross Brawn demanded that Schumacher stay out, or rather more likely, Michael believed that he could keep the charging men at bay. Regardless of who decided to keep the German out, it was a poor choice.

Pedro de la Rosa closed in on Schumacher and was obviously faster than the German. At this point it would have been wise for Schumacher to allow Pedro to go past him. If Michael had done this, he would have been pushed back to 3rd, but he would likely have been able to stay in front of Nick Heidfeld. Schumacher had to slow down to prevent de la Rosa from passing him, and this meant that Nick could catch up. That was mistake number 2.

Schumacher would make mistake number 3 while being pursued by Pedro de la Rosa. At the chicane, it was clear that Pedro was about to pass Michael, this would not happen though as Michael cut the chicane. No problem there, if he hadn't have, Schumacher would have run into de la Rosa. There issue arose however when Schumacher did not move over for the Spaniard after the chicane. The FIA Sporting Regulations mandate that no driver may take an advantage or pass another driver by using the chicane run off. Schumacher did the former and if he were to of moved over to allow Pedro by, there would not have been a problem. He didn't however and this is against the regulations.

Pedro de la Rosa would eventually get around Schumacher for 2nd. By this time of course, Nick Heidfeld had caught up to Michael Schumacher. Now the smart thing for Michael to do would to have let Nick by right away. This would have given Schumacher 5 points, which would have meant that since Alonso crashed out, Michael would only be 6 points behind the Spaniard in the chase for the Championship. Michael however did not do this and fought Heidfeld when he clearly would not win. That was mistake number 4, number 5 would cost him any remaining points. Michael smacked into the back of Heidfeld, obviously after attempting to keep in touch and repass his fellow country man. This was a foolish thing to do and it cost Michael 5 valuable points.

The only saving grace for Schumacher today was that he scored one point for 8th after Robert Kubica's BMW-Sauber was unfortunately under weight after a brilliant debut race for the first ever Polish Formula 1 driver. 1 point, when he could have easily have scored 8, 6 or 5. There is no doubt that part of this was down to the weather and the tyres, but our great Rain Master is supposed to be able to overcome that. It is also true that Ferrari's strategy hurt Schumacher, but what damaged his race the most was his foolish antics. Michael didn't need to drive so aggressively, to score an extra point. He should have been more than pleased to take home 6 or 5 points, but he was not. Maybe he was greedy, or just plain foolish, regardless of the reasoning behind his driving, it was still a very poor race for Michael Schumacher today in Hungary.

August 7, 2006