Schumacher, Frentzen & Wendlinger...

I wasn't interested in racing back then, but can anyone recall how competitive the trio was when apposed to eachother.? I just think it is interesting how differing their careers have become...

I thought they were very evenly matched, it's a myth that Schumacher was a lot slower than Frentzen or Wendlinger back then. If I had to rank them back in 91 I probably would have ranked them; Wendlinger-Schumacher-Frentzen, but there wasn't much between them

Everytime I look at Frentzen, he always reminds me of David Duchovny, the star from the TV-series 'The X-Files'. Some time ago, when 'Sly' Stallone tried to make a movie about F1, I wonder if he asked Duchovny whether to play HHF

And anotherparallel: both (Fox Mulder & HHF) had to fight against extraterrestrials. In case of Frentzen it was 'ET' Michael Schumacher - he's simply better than him. I know that they are not the best buddies too - especially since Schumacher took away his girlfriend Corinna.

No joking!

I think Frentzen made an fatal error when he joined Jordan again in '99 - after he had made a bad experience in '90, when he drove in Eddie's F3000-team, but Jordan was only taking Frentzen money to built up his F1-team - and not giving him competitive material. I was not really surprised when Jordan fired him some months ago.

It's difficult to estimate Wendlinger's career - but I was not really impressed about his work for Sauber '93 - '94 before he had his crash.

Wendlinger was VERY impressive in the March and did an excellent job at Sauber as well.

Originally posted by William Hunt
Wendlinger was VERY impressive in the March and did an excellent job at Sauber as well.

I would agree with that. In fact, in their junior years, I think they were all at a similar level but with experience and motivation Schumacher has gone on to dominate F1.

Originally posted by William Hunt
Wendlinger was VERY impressive in the March and did an excellent job at Sauber as well.

William, I agree that Wendlinger was very, very impressiv in that old 911B March in '92, but as far as I remember the difference between him and Letho was * zero in '93. And in practice Letho was able to beat him 9:7. So we'll have to rate Letho and Wendlinger as nearly equal?!?!

But the truth is really difficult to tell for Wendlinger never drove in a top-team (like Schumacher and Frentzen).

The facts in the early years between these three: In F3 they owned the first three places in the '89 German F3 Championship - in this order: Wendlinger, Frentzen, Schumacher. While Schumacher did another year in F3 and took the championship one year later, Frenzten and Wendlinger moved to other Formula.

In F3000 Frentzen made no impression (I mentioned his years with Eddie Jordan in '90 & '91) where he was only able to score 8 pts. Wendlinger was a similar case, two years in F3000, 8 pts (he drove for Dr. Marko). As far as I know, Schumacher never drove that Formula - and this was of course the RIGHT decision.

The best way to make a comparison is the '90 Sports Car World Championsship, when Jochen Mass was their 'teacher'. It's interesting to hear from him he considered Frentzen (who was not given the chance for another year with Sauber-Mercedes in '91, when Wendlinger and Schumacher teamed up), as the best of them. After his disatrous year with Jordan in F3000 he went to Japan where he won the F3000-championship there in '93 - an nobody expected to see him again, when Peter Sauber remembered HHF.

Frentzen & Wendlinger drove three races together with Sauber in '94, when Frentzen was the faster qualifier (3:0) but Wendlinger scored more points (2:4). But Schumacher was a star already!

Why, there's so much wrong info here...

Ok, Wendlinger won the 1989 German F3 Championship from Frentzen and Schumacher, but in reality all three (plus Michael Bartels) were pretty much in a dead heat. Depending on the scoring system, every other outcome would've been plausible!

Frentzen and Wendlinger both made a very good impression in F3000, constantly qualifying in the top 10. RSM was in its first year in the category, while Frentzen was only third driver at EJR.

Schumacher did race in F3000, if only once. He was second at Sugo in '91.

Frentzen was the one who opted out of the Daimler-Benz deal, since he wanted to concentrate on F3000. That was not a bad decision at the time, since Reynolds Germany ("Camel") put their weight behind the deal, only to jump ship when Schumacher was signed by Benetton. There were a lot of political shenanigans taking place at the times...

Frentzen never won the Japanese F3000 Championship, he never even won a race there. But he did do another good job, especially in testing for Bridgestone.

Lehto was close to Wendlinger because he, too, was a VERY good driver up until his accident in testing.

All of those just didn't get the right breaks at the right times. Period.

Originally posted by fines
Why, there's so much wrong info here...

Schumacher did race in F3000, if only once. He was second at Sugo in '91.

Frentzen never won the Japanese F3000 Championship, he never even won a race there. But he did do another good job, especially in testing for Bridgestone.

Fines, sorry, I did a little research on Frentzens homepage and you're certainly right. I read this wrong information in old annuals I've collected. I don't trust these anymore! Or my thoughts have circled around Ralf Schumacher - who has won that title.

But if you consider that until now only 2 drivers that have won the European F3000 championship have won a single F1-race - how should I rank the value of this championship right?

And of course Schumacher did race in F3000 - but not in the European Championship.

Originally posted by fines
Schumacher did race in F3000, if only once. He was second at Sugo in '91.

He got the good chassis, and for that weekend, the regular driver Johnny Herbert became his #2 team-mate ...
http://8w.forix.com/sugo91.jpg
Ross Cheever won the race.

In 1991 when Wendlinger and Schumacher were partners in the Mercedes Sportscar, which driver qualified the car?

Originally posted by McRonalds


But if you consider that until now only 2 drivers that have won the European F3000 championship have won a single F1-race - how should I rank the value of this championship right?

Aaaargh
That's not my day. How can I forget Juan Montoya, who will probably improve that miserable F3000-champion-statistics.

Found this nice Mercedes ad from '91. Translated: „Would you entrust your Mercedes to these gentlemen?“ WOULD YOU?

Of course HHF is missing, the guy on the left is Fritz Kreuzpointner. I think he's doing truckracing at the moment.

Schumacher got all the lucky breaks but he worked harder than the other two in the german way. He would run 10K if they asked him to where HH would run 8 and then walk other 2 and make fun of Schumacher for being so obsessive. Then Schumacher would only eat the right foot and HH would go for all sorts of stuff including paella, since his mother is from Spain. In the end the germans liked Schumi because he was the one with character to be champions, HH was enjoying life too much for the germans.....and often outqualifying MS in the Mercedes prototype too.
They came to Mexico one of those years and HH was the funniest guy, talking to everyone in spanish, joking and Schumi was a a complete nazi who wouldn´t speak to the non aryans basically, so we all ignored him. O f course Schumi is the great driver now but he's beating a bunch of nobodys and will always be tainted by that. Senna had a prost and Mansell and a Piquet, Schumi has nobody, except Jacques in some piece of junk.

Originally posted by Carlos Jalife
In the end the germans liked Schumi because he was the one with character to be champions, HH was enjoying life too much for the germans...

Originally posted by Carlos Jalife
They came to Mexico one of those years and HH was the funniest guy, talking to everyone in spanish, joking and Schumi was a a complete nazi who wouldn´t speak to the non aryans basically, so we all ignored him.

In 1991, Wendlinger and Schumacher came to Mexico, but had a DNF. Schumacher set the fastest lap. In 1991 Frentzen was busy with F3000, and not racing for Mercedes.

In 1990, the junior drivers shared a car with Jochen Mass. In different rounds you would see a different junior driver as the partner to Mass. In the 1990 Mexico round, it was a team of Schumacher and Mass, and they won the race, Schumacher setting fastest lap.

Michael Schumacher had two sportscar races at Mexico, both times setting fastest lap. Now, is it any surprise that his first Grand Prix podium was at that track in 1992, and that in first qualifying, he was on the front row in 1992 next to Mansell?

Originally posted by Carlos Jalife
...Schumi is the great driver now but he's beating a bunch of nobodys and will always be tainted by that. Senna had a prost and Mansell and a Piquet, Schumi has nobody, except Jacques in some piece of junk.

And sometimes beating them by turning their cars into junk!

So you're saying that he might be head and shoulders above the rest, but the rest are on their knees?

Originally posted by William Hunt
Wendlinger was VERY impressive in the March and did an excellent job at Sauber as well.

I totally aggree with you. This another one of many examples of, "what may have been".

Originally posted by Carlos Jalife
O f course Schumi is the great driver now but he's beating a bunch of nobodys and will always be tainted by that. Senna had a prost and Mansell and a Piquet, Schumi has nobody, except Jacques in some piece of junk.

How silly of us, and to think I thought Mika wasn't a bad driver. Sheesh. He can only beat who is there to be beaten.

As for Jacques, well let's see - 1 WDC and about 5 WMC (World Mouth Championship - hotly contested with Eddie Irvine)

In truth it comes back to the old saw - comparison between eras (or in this case generations) is odious at best.

Neil

OK, so Mika is good in your view, I have a different opinion saying McLaren was good and any competent driver could have won in their cars, and certainly Mika is better than David, which means nothing so far.
And Schumi didn't beat Villeneuve ever to a championship. Jacues won , next year the Williams was bad and then he went to BAR which is worse. So when did they ever meet in similar cars?
I say Schumi ids highly overrated and it is not his fault but he is not the great driver marketing would have us believe. Fangio defeated a bunch of greats, so did Stiring, so did Clark, so did Rindt, so did Stewart, so did Prost, Lauda, Senna, Piquet, and Mansell. Who exactly great did Schumi beat? Each of the drivers named beat someone else considered great. Again, who's the great guy Schumi is defeating? I don't see anyone and that's the point. Yes they are all on their knees as Ray says.
And to clarify something. The Mercedes people I talked about would say HH was not disciplined enough and that's why they prefered Schumi, because he wouldn't do anything outside the program. Hey, he wouldn't test mexican food becuase he didn't have it in his diet, and HH ate and tried hot salsa sand all sort of stuff. Maybe eating salsa makes you a worse driver but the guy was 21 or something and he had the (cartoon) image of being a german robot, and that's what the Mercedes people liked so much, while HH was a much freer spirit. They are both where they chose to be but certainly Schumi wasn't the most naturally gifted of the trio, but he was the most disciplines and improved his large skills through this. That's how I see it. As for Karl, he was kind of shy but tried to speak spanish, was a very warm guy and friendly. Schumi had the attitude "I have to be here and I don't like it". And when he came back to Mexico for the GP he was very fast but still very cold with people and a lot of guys who went for autographs with him would be flatly rejected and would say "who the hell does he think he is" and he was basically a nobody a rising star yes but he had airs of being so much more important. I didn't ask for his autograph because I was working the Larrousse and March pits but there was a huge difference with Mansell and Senna who both were so kind and Senna saw me after a mmeting and called me and gave me the autograph I had asked for an hour earlier. Mansell would hug the pit marshalls and say "Amigo" and get pictures with all of them. Schumi might have changed now but he certainly was full of himself in those years and he wasn't liked very much. And as an aside, the driver most popular with girls was, easily Christian Fittipaldi. I was his grid marshall and talked briefly with him, and I had offers of all the women in the organization to trade places with me, including some that weren't even in the paddock/pits duties.

Not wishing to turn this into a "Hello" style thread, but hasn't the whole story about Corinna, MS and HHF been exaggerated over time?

As I understood, HHF went out with Corinna a few times when there were young - nothing too serious - a couple of dates. Some time later, long after whatever she and HHF actually had (if anything) she met MS, and started seeing him seriously.

MS didn't steal Corinna, HHF wasn't bothered etc etc. No story there. But of course, it sells papers to build up rivalry between HHF and MS based on the jilted lover theory...

As far as I know, HHF and Corinna had been serious but it was over before anything happened with Michael.

I think in the early days Heinz had the reputation as the fastest and Wendlinger as the most steady (perhaps needing more confidence, he needed more laps to get the kind of times HHF and Michael could achieve). Heinz was very good at fuel economy and Michael apparently learnt quite a bit from him there (Heinz's ability to set fast laps on little fuel was commented on at Jordan in 1999).

Apparently, the reason HHF went to F3000 was that, felt to be the most promising, he was given the opportunity. Hasn't Michael said that if he'd had the chance, he'd have taken it?

In his first year in F3000, Heinz was sometimes very fast but also erratic. In his second, he was much improved but unfortunately his team was nowhere. That was again the problem in FNippon but he outperformed his team-mate, who was defending champion.

The three had a great race together at Le Mans in 1991. I was impressed seeing them charge on as much as they could. Three young guns.

This summer I met HHF again at the Zandvoort DTM. He was very approachable and when two young grabbed hold of him to get a threesome picture, HHF quickly checked: "You girls are above 18???"