Damon Hill

Hill also advises that you watch out for Schumacher around right hand turns in Australia

You know, I’ve never seen a sportsman who was having a bad year be as widely defended as Schumacher. I mean, I know that if Schumi ever gets his act together and figures out all the tyre, straight line speed, etc. issues which have been plaguing his F1 return then he will be the world’s biggest cash cow not called LeBron James, but the amount of support he has gotten is ridiculous.

The latest person to come out and support him is the one and only Damon Hill, one of Schumacher’s earliest and bitterest rivals. Hill has made the mistake of writing of Schumacher before – as many in F1 outside of Mercedes have this year – and he says that that is the worst idea since tequila and handguns.

”But you should never write the guy off. I made that mistake. You just can’t count him out. He is never out. He will somehow pull something out of the hat from somewhere, and he is very determined to achieve things.”

Well, I don’t know about you but I’ve been waiting for the good old Schumacher hat of tricks to come into play for some time now.

Hill also said that rather than holding him back, Schumacher’s age will just serve to motivate him more:

”He’ll also want to show he can win at the age of 41. He’s still a very young guy. These days 41 is not that old.”

I’ve got to say I agree with Hill on all fronts here. One day the modern F1 technology will click for Schumacher and he will start to get his car to behave, and I really don’t think that the age thing is as big of a deal as people make it out to be. Elite sportsmen don’t get tied down by age like regular folks – Ryan Giggs (Football), Lance Armstrong (cycling), Mark Martin (NASCAR), Randy Couture (MMA) and Brett Favre (NFL) are all examples of people who do stuff that their ages should really stop them doing.

Still, Schumacher can have all the support and backing in the world. He can even say that this is a practice year before making an assault on the top of the championship during the next two. At the end of the day, he does actually need to show a glimpse of a good performance.

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