Schumacher confirms the apocalypse is coming!!!

Sunday we saw one more of the signs of the impending apocalypse (Zombie apocalypse is my guess, read Max Brooks to be prepared), or perhaps Michael Schumacher is mellowing in his old age.

“You know Michael – you talk to him and he will always feel that he is right. He stopped [for] three years [but] he hasn’t changed at all. He is still the same guy.” No prizes for guessing that’s Barichello speaking.

While it’s not actually listed as one of the seven signs of this apocalypse thing, it makes way more sense than Michael admitting he may have been in the wrong on his own. I’ve done a little research this evening, and no where does it actually give the names of the four horseman, its very possible one is called Michael.

He actually admitted that perhaps he was a little over aggressive when he all but ran Rubens Barrichello off the track in Hungary Yesterday. I was watching the race and no question was the move over the top, no one has an issue with the driver defending the corner, but what Michael did was over the top.

The pass is all over Youtube if you’ve not seen it.

Schumacher said that after looking at the incident, the stewards were right, it was too much. OK, Michael has history of this, and there is certainly no love lost between those two drivers, but this was a far too aggressive move for the lead, let alone 10^th place and 1 point in the standings.

“Right after the race I was still in the heat of the action,” said Michael, “But after watching the moment again, I must say the stewards were right in their assessment: the manoeuvre against Rubens was too dangerous. I wanted to make it hard for him to pass me but I didn’t want to endanger him with my manoeuvre. If he has this feeling I am sorry, this was not my intention.”

Yep, get your Zombie fighting gear together, Michael Schumacher said sorry.

Ross Brawn (Mercedes Team principal) came to Michaels defence immediately after the face with “I don’t think for a moment Michael was trying to put Rubens in the wall, he was trying to discourage him from coming down the inside as he thought that was where he would be vulnerable. At the end of the day he gave him enough space. You can argue it was marginal, but it was tough racing.”

The stewards disagree about it being “marginal” and Michael got slapped with a 10 place qualifying penalty on the grid in Belgium, and a lot of people thought he got off easy.

As for the rest of the race, the Red Bulls were once again totally dominating in qualifying. Weber drove a great race, Vettel lost his early lead ended up third behind Massa after screwing up with the safety car out which cost him a stop-and-go penalty. It’s a long time since I’ve seen someone that unhappy to be on the podium. Vettel was not happy and this is just another weekend where Red Bull has failed to turn a great qualifying performance into an easy 1-2.

McLaren were nowhere to be seen after a disastrous weekend. Lewis Hamilton lost the world championship lead with a costly DNF when his gearbox broke. Jenson Button finished a very distant eighth in what was a rather processional race, which is typical for Hungary. It’s clear that Red Bull and to a slightly lesser extent Ferrari have a distinct equipment advantage.

There has been a lot of talk of these two teams running flexible front wings that run much closer to the ground when the car is at speed on the track giving more down force and better performance, especially on the high speed circuits. Hungary is not a high speed circuit (nor was Hockenheim last weekend) and Red Bull are clearly the best team out there. McLaren and Ferrari have a lot of work to get the initive back in what’s turned into a very close fought championship.

With 25 points for a win, there are 5 drivers heading into the final 9 races just a good weekend away from leading the championship. This is fun.