Give Mercedes some time.. it's a new team. As the season progress... you'll see Michael match and then surpass Nico consistently...

Don't forget... MS had his Ferrari built for him and his teammates had to adjust around him.

It's just the 1st race with very limited testing now preseason it'll take even Schumi some time to get fully up to speed. +.. this is the 1st qualifying session. As everyone said, no one could predict how it would go and where every was. Now they know ;-)

Any Michael was suffering from bad tire wear yesterday. He might have soften his setup compromising his qualifying and making sure his setup is good for the race. There aren't any points awarded for Saturday so lets who ends up on top tomorrow

But who is Rosberg? Still 0 wins, has been beaten by Lewis and Webber as teammates. He's not that special.

What are the odds of Schumacher being replaced by Heidfeld?

like kimi replacing button

What are the chances of Alonso and Button getting replaced?..both of whom got thumped by their team mate far worse than Rosberg beat MS

I was a huge Schumi fan when he drive for Benetton but he became he horrible man when he joined Ferrari. There is no denying that, the guy got corrupted and lost his moral values.

Decent job from Michael, showing that he is still competitive

One would assume that, as the season progresses, he should have more room for improvement than most of his opponents.

About 500/1

The standard ECU was introduced in 2008, which closes off the loopholes of drivers aids such as traction control that Schumacher and his team were experts at getting around.
Today we just saw the read schumacher who had to actually compete against his teammate for the first time. A teammate who has not even won a race, yet is still faster than Schumacher in all sessions.

He never did anything bad at Benetton did he, it all started at Ferrari.

Webber more so if the Red Bull is that fast. I expected to see him up there this year.

Considering Schumacher has been out of the sport for 3 years, I would be surprised if he wasn't a teensy bit rusty and equally surprised if a younger team mate who has been competing wasn't giving him a run for his money. If I didnt go to the gym for 3 years I'd expect someone who did to be a bit fitter and better than I was It will be interesting to see how things go as the season progresses.

So MS did not drive without TC? And 41 year old and 3 years out of sport is the real Schumacher not the man who won 7 titles and crushed the opposition for half a decade?

A fat, out of shape 41 year old Nigel Mansell got pole position in Australia 1994, beating a prime 25 year old Schumacher to pole.
Something Schumacher can't do when the roles are reversed.

OMG tooooo funny. 1 qualifying session and you can draw that conclusion wow... please please tell me what the winning lotto numbers will be tonight

I seem to recall that every year, Michael wasn't perfect in Qualifying or Races being ahead of his teammate 100% of the time. Rubens outgunned him sometimes, Irvine outgunned him sometimes.. etc.

Now if he's 0-4 in qualifying and 0-4 in races... then yeah, might be time to wonder whats up.

Considering this is the 1st race in 16 years with no refueling.. maybe Michael is setup for the race.. where it counts more then worry about beating his teammate in session 3 of qualifying.. Maybe... just maybe.. it may work in his favor tomorrow... we'll know in less then 24 hours ..

Even then, we won't really know for at least 2 months who's a bit ahead of their teammates.

Scuhumacher has had hundreds of laps of practice during testing.
If that hasn't helped him overcome the 'rustiness', then I don't know what will.

I doubt if he'll get any faster through the season ..

You know nothing about driving, do you? Schumy have always beaten his team mates fair and square. If you see in the onboard, it's just not the same driver anymore, he's slow with his reflexies.

If he get closer to what he was, he'll trash Rosberg.

In the same car?

Nah, it would raise suspicion if a 41 year old dominated his teammate right from the start after 3 years of absence. MS is not that stupid. For sure MS and his evil mastermind Ross Brawn already have a cheating plan in place to be used later

You wish don't you...again MS was less off his team mate than Alonso,Button and Webber..the latter 3 have no rustiness at all.

As opposed to the thousands that was the norm just a couple of years ago.

Hundreds of laps .. soo.. many of them where in the rain or cold conditions. Plus, they were test sessions trying out different bits of the car and shake downs. Hardly, equivalent to a full qualifying session in the heat of Bahrain.

Go go-karting one day and see how quickly a few hundred laps go by .. and that isn't even testing out new bits and setups.. 100's of laps is hardly anything to write home about.

Yeah. It does seem that he's lost too much speed.

The MS v1.0 would've perhaps outpaced Rosberg by 0.5 s. Now the reverse is true. He seems to have lost ~1 second(?) from the haitus.

MS last raced in an F1 car without traction control in 2000. I wonder if this has made it harder for him.

Nah, not really I think.
Difference now is that Rosberg is a good driver that seems to get equal support.
Imagine if this was at Ferrari, Schumacher would have had Rosberg´s car for tomorrows race..

With the testing restrictions, how is MS going to manage 1000's of laps of practice to get rid of the 'rustiness'?

nothing that happens this season will change schuey's status as the Greatest Of All Time.

anyway, Rosberg's single-lap pace has always been better than his race pace, I expect ms to beat nico tomorrow.

Dude.. seriously...

It's called race laps and additional weekends with Friday and Saturday practice, qualifying and races...

Hopefully, Mercedes don't have any serious realiblity issues and Shumi can start to rack up some significant mileage.

He's been the car a handful of times, mainly testing and yet he's within a few tenths of his team mate after having been out of F1 for years. Impressive, maybe not to you but at the end of the day.. he jumped back into F1 and is COMPETITIVE... time will tell he can win races again.

Sooo far.. so good. All systems go to having a successful return.

IMO not by 0.5 but by around 0.2 sec. Now is he is 0.3 secs back. Which means he is off about .5 secs...we will see how much of this he will claw back.

Traction control...oh yeah, and the lack of grooved tires .. the no refueling so setup compromises now to make sure the car handles well from heavy to light fuel has nothing to do with it as well, the lack of rear wing grip etc.

The simple fact of the matter is.. this years 2010 car is nothing like cars of old FOR EVERYONE...

Everyone has to adjust and even today, NO ONE is really sure how it will fully shake down tomorrow and how to approach future races regarding setup/strategies etc.

Different for everyone yes..but a lot different for MS who last raced in 2006 with different aero rules and different tires.

And I am like the biggest MS fan around but if he can't hack it anymore...then he should and he will quit. MS did not come back to muddle around in mid pack all season behind his team mate. But we can't judge anything in one quali can we?

what are you smoking? the cars have barely changed since last year so some people are more used to them than others

No KERS, no refueling, narrower front tires.
The cars are very different from last season...

Kiddin right... please tell me you were..

And completely different from 2006 with smaller wings,different tires,more fuel...which was the whole point of the discussion.

I wouldn't bet on it.

stop trying to justify's Michael's position. It does him no good

he's here to race and win. Obviously not possible from day one. he isn't looking for excuses, he admits he has to improve.
let the guy race ...and enjoy, we are quite lucky to have "the star" back on track....and pretty much on pace

Yup...he has to raise his game.We will see if he can but I would not bet against him,41 or not.

Yeah, lets see after 4 or 5 races. Im sure he will improve. Im happy he's back. The season got all the more exciting .......... 80s again ???

He did better than I expected at his "first" Qualy. We will see how things will change in the (next) races...


H2H

barely different compared to when schumacher last raced i meant.

for people who raced last season the cars arent really that different


most people didnt have kers anyway ,the cars are a bit heavier but they are still the same cars the majority of the grid adjusted to last year.

narrow front tyres is the only massive difference

Best sector times: http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1_me...ing-sectors.pdf

Schumacher is behind by over 7 tenths which is just too much. Even Nakajima was 2 tenths behind Rosberg Q2 last year. Rosberg lost time in his last run sector 3, that's why it is closer in the end.

3 tenths of Rosberg over a 2 minute lap is perfectly respectable. Rosberg and Hamilton were 3 tenths slower than McLaren's new 14 year old driver Nyck De Vries only the other week when they went testing in Italy. Two of the best drivers in F1 could't lap quicker than a child in top spec karts (anyone who's driven them will know how physical and demanding they are).

It just goes to show if you haven't driven a certain vehicle at a competitive level for a few years it takes time to bed yourself back in.

Schumacher will be just fine!

Longer lap, so the difference is exaggerated. New layout. New format MS was not used to. Come 3 races he will be okay. In fact, it might be even earlier if we come to the tracks whose layout he is familiar with.

Schumacher says he still needs time

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82095

People, not even one race has been seen of this season yet.

Sit down, relax, chill, and so on

Putting together the best sector times doesn't really make too much sense. You might kill it in sector 1 but mess up the rest of the lap from getting into deep into a sector 2 corner etc.

Either way, he's back and competitive. Now just needs time and km's to see if he can eek out some time from the package.

this is not big gap between rosberg and schumacher
in 1988 senna somtimes outqualified prost 1.5 sec ....in the same car
schumacher need a lot of parctice so he is perhaps more "hard worker" than the "most talented and faster driver ever"
but 7 place is not bad after 3 years...

point of view this going to be a very interesting race to watch
7 positions for schumi is more than good considering " a man with 3 years out of f1, a new team, a car not designed to his driving style liking a younger teammate , the First Race of the season in a Circuit that his teammate always performed ok. "And still managed to be into 10 ten. At the first race of the year!!! That sounds promising from my point of view, it's just we are reading too much into this first race. And for sure forgetting that this is Schumacher.. The 7 times champion. None of the current drivers have this. And some of you still posting nonsense comments. Come on; just enjoy the start of this new season. And stop this schumi bashing
.
Let's wait for the race

Regards

Alex C.
Dominican Republic

I like Michael. Never met him in person but I like him from what I see, hear and know. But it was obvious time has caught up with him. Everything is so much more competitive nowdays. Nico will dominate him all over the place. It's OK to take one year off like Prost for instance but three is just too long. He struggles in qualifying. Imagine what it will be in the races. I salute him for his balls to mount this comeback but it will be painful to watch. I know it might be premature to make this call but Nick is standing in the wings and there's always Kimi.

alright then ...

Rosberg - Schumacher :
1 - 0

I seem to like the looks of that !:)