Schumacher’s family correct media “speculation”

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: The family of Michael Schumacher respond to media reports claiming the seven-times champion was ‘out of danger’ by advising people to ignore reports that do not come from his doctors.

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Schumacher’s condition critical but stable – agent (Reuters)

“Michael’s condition remains critical but stable. We would like to clearly stress that any information regarding Michael’s health not coming from the doctors treating him or from his management must be treated as invalid and pure speculation.”

F1 in new manufacturer arms race risk (Autosport)

Cyril Abiteboul: “In 2015, you will have four players – Ferrari, Red Bull with Renault, Mercedes and Honda – that have an obligation to be successful. They need to justify the level of spending that is currently being put into it – and that obligation to win is going to create a massive arms race between them.”

A tale of two halves as TV ratings increase slightly (F1 Broadcasting)

“Unlike BBC, Sky Sports F1???s coverage dropped throughout. When putting it on a level playing field with the BBC, the main part of their race-day programming averaged 685k, down on the 767k recorded in 2012, a decrease of 12.0%.”

For Michael (Max Rally)

“The picture was blurry, but there was no doubt about it: this was Michael Schumacher emerging from a Subaru Impreza WRC.”

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Comment of the day

There was no shortage of excellent suggestions for yesterday’s Caption Competition. Among those on the shortlist to win were those from Cjpdk, Joey-Poey, Prisoner Monkeys, Me4me, Ivan, Milos Zivkovic and Suvan Naidu.

However my favourite was this caption from Jxb141:

Raikkonen: “And I thought I’d look silly wearing shorts…”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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43 comments on “Schumacher’s family correct media “speculation””

  1. Cyril’s comments are right on the money. I find it interesting though that he refers to Redbull and Renault as one, yet doesn’t include Mclaren in his reference to Honda. Honda don’t have a chassis. The ratings drop for tv might just prompt “double” ratings if you watch FP1 and FP2 where nothing happens anymore thanks to the concern over tyre usage.

    1. Because he mentions the parties who will be spending crazy to be successfull. And it will most likely be Honda putting in the money into that deal @funkyf1, not McLaren

      1. Will Honda enginners design the next Mclaren chassis? Mclaren have had Mercedes power for the last few years and achieved nothing. When using a power plant that’s not designed around your chassis you have to work with the manufacture as mentioned prior with Redbull-Renault. In 2012 Mclaren had a weapon, yet failures within the workshop let the drivers down, without turning this into a “what’s happened to Mclaren” conversation, maybe Cyril has started discounting them like a lot of other people have.

        1. Well, really we could say much the same of Ferrari for the last 3 years really @funkyf1.

          Reality is, that McLaren without a manufacturer poring in money is just not capable of spending as much as Ferrari, Mercedes or Mateschitz.

  2. That final link about Schumacher and Solberg is a fantastic read.

  3. Personally, I thought there were better auggestiiins in the caption competition than that.

    1. @full-throttle-f1 Yep, the one about Kimi wishing he hadn’t asked his family along was the funniest for me :)

      1. I liked the one where it said something like “the price to pay, for not getting paid”

        1. Yep that one was good too! Plus Kimi doesn’t look silly wearing shorts!

  4. lol *suggestions

  5. “We would like to clearly stress that any information regarding Michael’s health not coming from the doctors treating him or from his management must be treated as invalid and pure speculation.”

    This is why I have been making no comment on his injuries and have been very wary about what Gary Hartstein has been saying. It’s very easy to speculate – I know he’s made it clear as such, but on the web, things will get taken out of context.

    1. I guess its also why after that first blog post Hartstein stopped writing other, because as you mention, its really all speculation.
      I guess that even when one does know the medical facts its still hard to predict anything, so its better just to wait.

    2. I know he’s made it clear as such, but on the web, things will get taken out of context.

      Hypocrisy of some internet users, or “media’s” habit for taking things out of context on purpose, should never stop smart and intelligent people of sharing their opinions and insights. Hartstein made it clear that he was mostly speculating because his info was limited, but he just shared and educated opinion on a subject he is very experienced at.

      What you take from reading it is your own choice, but if you chose to interpret it in a wrong way or whatever, it’s your interpretation and just yours.

      I appreciate all the info and thoughts shared on the matter as long as they are a genuine thought through articles with an aim of actually sharing knowledge with those of us who are really interested in the subject and not just putting a controversial stuff out there in order to generate page views.

      1. This is why I have been making no comment on his injuries and have been very wary about what Gary Hartstein has been saying.

        @mouse_nightshirt – what possible reason could you have to be “wary” about what Dr. Gary Harstein wrote about the subject, given from the very start he made clear that 1) he lacked clinical access to the patient; and 2) was providing information on background to ellucidate basic facts related to the general context of treatment for severe brain injuries? He at no point attempted to convince anyone that he was capable of saying exactly what was happening to Michael Schumacher, and he certainly hasn’t mislead anyone or provided inaccurate information. In fact, he did a great service initially by helping a lot of layman F1 fans understand the implication of the information that was later released.

        It’s really annoying to read commentary like yours that ascribes some negative connotation to what Dr. Harstein wrote/said, especially when I interacted with him directly, 1:1, and was there to see him say very clearly that he did not have the capacity to offer any more insight than he’d already provided, because he could not examine Schumacher and so could only speak based on his own medical training and the info that had been released.

        Lastly, why would you be expected to comment on Schumacher’s injuries in the first place? Are you an MD or other medical professional? Or a public figure somehow connected to the case, to whom media and fans would look for authoritative insight?

        1. I do not remember exactly in what specialization, but from a while back I do remember a post from @mouse_nightshirt about their working in a hospital as a doctor @joepa

        2. @joepa – have you been looking at his twitter feed? He’s been providing plenty of what I would call “speculative insight”. He’s been suggesting what the doctors may do based on “what’s been said and not been said” by the doctors. He’s been suggesting what treatment they might want to try next.

          Early on, there was a twitter message posted that was shown here on F1F from him stating something along the lines of Gary awaiting to hear that he’d be coming off the ventilator the following day as that would be good news. That just sets it all up for a fall.

          And @bascb is right. I’m a doctor in Critical Care and Anaesthesia. These sorts of injuries are sadly fairly common to me, and I recognise speculation when I see it.

  6. That blog on the viewing figures is very interesting. Clearly shows that if Sky does want to make F1 a success, then they need to change their pricing, or adjust their packages, so that more people have access to it for a reasonable fee.

    1. Sky Sports F1 during the off season is horrific – I’ve checked it out during the last few days and they have 4-5 clips/interviews (Webber in the wet, Button in Brazil, Esteban interview and a blooper/takeout clip) on loop. 60 years of races and plenty of in-season footage to show. Do they have rights to the old races?

      1. @synapseza They do, well they do show classic races in the run up to an event.

    2. i look on that blog regularly and there was a post yesterday about the bbc and sky review shows and

      sky got an average of 1000 viewers!!!! where were the other 699,000 subcribers. sky must feel embarresed and demoralised (even if all they care about is money)

      the bbc didnt do much better with only 800,000(first its been under a million ever for a review show)

      1. There are over 10 million Sky subscribers… Also the figures dropped off as Vettel became more of a shoe-in for winning #4 WDC. Most UK F1 fans (me included) don’t find one guy dominating all that much fun to watch. I did watch every race though (and on Sky which has the best coverage in the history of the sport, hands down). I just wished for a little less (team budget) dominance (favouritism) of one driver over his teammate with (extremely) dodgy rule (breaking) bending equipment…

  7. I don’t have Sky but ready for last season i purchased the Sky app for my phone. It was brill at £4.99 a month for 8 channels mainly all the sports ones and no contract, i could watch F1 anywhere. Then what did they do , took away 2 of the channels and started to charge £9.99 a month, goodbye Sky

  8. This was actually way better

    “The price to pay .. for actually getting paid.” by ME4ME

  9. Sky have gotten rid of the option to watch f1 hd with the hd package, so you now need to pay £16 a month to have the sports package on top of a usual sky package. When you can get good highlights from the bbc and torrents freely available it really is not worth it. Im switching to freesat as im fed up of giving them my money.

    1. Sky have gotten rid of the option to watch f1 hd with the hd package, so you now need to pay £16 a month to have the sports package on top of a usual sky package.

      Have they? I heard rumours last year about this, but it was denied, and have heard nothing since.

      Do you have a source?

  10. I have what I think is a brilliant solution to the arms race (and maybe even rising costs): go back to the 1950s.

    I have a vision where manufacturers are the only ones to build and develop a chassis (and engines). They sell these as a product to the teams at a fixed price, and the teams compete on their behalf. There would also be a limit on the maximum number of chassis a manufacturer could supply. All cars using a particular chassis would be eligible to score points in a new championship title, the World Manufacturers’ Championship (and to avoid confusion, the constructors’ championship would be renamed as the World Teams’ Championship).

    By fixing the price of all chassis, the FIA can directly control costs, because it would be in the interests of the manufacturers to make a profit. There would also be a rule setting the minimum number of teams a manufacturer must supply, preventing one or two manufacturers from supplying everyone and thus dominating the grid to make bigger profits.

    1. I like your idea, but what restrictions would you put on the development of the chassis? and can people who crash a lot get multi -buy discounts?

      1. It would be self-governing. The manufacturers would only get an income from selling the chassis, and with the FIA controlling the price of the chassis, they would only have a limited budget for developing the car. There would have to be some kind of external control to limit what money the manufacturers could spend on development, but I think it would work.

        In the case of crashers, the teams would actually buy a package containing chassis, engine, and upgrade plan. They would get several chassis as part of this deal. Most teams already build several chassis, anyway.

        The whole thing would be expensive, coming in at around $50 million for a full package. But if there are four manufacturers, and twenty-four grid spaces, that means each manufacturer could have three teams, which gives the manufacturers a budget of $150 million per season, or about what midfield teams are spending. Additional income could come from a team paying more to be the de facto works team, and getting upgrades a race or two in advance.

    2. @prisoner-monkeys Sounds a bit like MotoGP, doesn’t it? Which makes me wary of this system – there are currently only two competitive manufacturers in MotoGP (Honda and Yamaha) – three at a stretch (if you include Ducati). And realistically, the bikes they sell to privateers are rarely as competitive as the actual works bikes.

      It’s also resulted in some threadbare grids – so much so that they’ve had to introduce this whole CRT/non-MSMA ruleset as a workaround.

      1. In my vision, every team that joins a manufacturer wold get exactly the same chassis and engine as the others that joined. All of it would be regulated by the FIA to ensure parity. The price for a package would be fixed, so Ferrari teams would pay exactly the same amount as Mercedes teams, Renault teams, and Honda teams.

    3. @prisoner-monkeys (For now) I see two potential problems here: one is that for instance teams like Sauber have stated that they want to continue building their own chassis.

      The other problem is aerodynamics. Back in the 1950s, a client would buy a Maserati or Talbot chassis and there wasn’t really much they could do to develop it. The only thing they could do was tweak the engine, set up the suspension and that’s basically it. Nowadays, the aerodynamics get updated every other race or so. The problem is: how is a small team supposed to keep up with that? Buy left-overs? Produce their own updates using the manufacturer’s CAD drawings?

      Personally, I like the concept of smaller teams battling against the bigger teams. It’s fantastic to see Vanwall, Cooper, Lotus etc. beat the likes of Maserati, Ferrari and BRM. And also in 2013, I enjoyed watching a Sauber hold off a Ferrari for the entire race. A solution definitely needs to be found to control the costs, but something as radical as this.. I just don’t see it happening.

      1. That’s just Sauber’s bad luck. I cannot see any way of keeping costs down if everyone is building their own chassis.

        1. Also, there would be limits on how often an upgrade could be introduced, and how much of the car could be changed. I call this “upgrade budgeting”. Say a car has 1000 individual parts. A manufacturer would be permitted to change 2000 parts on the car over the course of a season, and they would not be allowed to change more than 400 parts at a time. When they introduce those upgrades and how many parts they change at a time is up to them, so long as they come in under the limits.

          That’s a rough example – I made the numbers up on the spot – but you get the idea.

          1. If you think a cost budget will be hard to keep in check, this is going to be even worse.

            And I think that what is mentioned about teams wanting to build their own cars (Sauber, Williams, Force India all do), as well as the state of the MotoGP grid should be a forewarning of what is to come. No, I do not like this idea a bit. In the 1950s nobody knew much about aerodynamics, nor did they have the tools to do much with it even if they wanted. That meant that it was the mechanical development that dictated the pace of development.

            And what you propose more or less means forcing half the teams (those with facilities available, but not having the budgets to build such a chassis for customers) out of F1. Williams, Sauber both have windtunnels, CFD facilities at top levels, by not using them, what good will that do them?

    4. I am glad you can see the sense of “going back to the future”, your ideas in general are well worth consideration. F1 was not broken in the sixties and 70’s and several teams bought their cars “off the shelf” which greatly assisted teams rich in ideas and talent but poor financially. The root cause of F1 problems is still, and will be, the 50% of revenue that is stolen from the sport by the successors to Bernie and Max, only when the teams can retain a more equitable share of the revenue they generate can F1 get back to health.

      1. No, the root cause of the problems is that the teams know that they can get a bigger advantage by spending more money on aerodynamic development. That’s what is causing costs to spiral out of control. Giving the teams more revenue generated by the sport will do nothing but compound the problem, because it is just giving them more money to spend. It would be a temporary injunction at best – within five years, costs would start to spiral out of control again.

        1. @prisoner-monkeys, obviously there need to be some limits on spending or “resources” but not the sort of one-design cars limits that currently are required to keep enough teams on the grid, an extra $50m. per team would allow for some variation in design or at least help the smaller teams to be closer to the mark with the current rules.

  11. Only 700000 watch the grand prix? Thought it was in the millions :-(

    1. That’s just in the UK @jaymz of course, but yes: it goes to show that F1’s attempts to make itself more exciting are falling flat on their face, at least in the UK.

    2. Wasn’t that only on sky though?

  12. People are still cutting back on the non-essentials, and you can’t get much less essential than Sky Sports – particularly with so many competitors offering TV + broadband packages. And particularly when they’re shifting the goalposts on who can get the channel for how much.

    Hope they can turn it around because I much prefer their coverage to BBC. And their classic races (they use a creative definition of ‘classic’ and don’t show many, but hey ho) have kept me going a little bit during the winter months with no new F1.

    1. I usually never watch Sky’s pre and post race coverage as it’s awful IMO. Simon Lazenby is unwatchable.

      But it’s Sky’s off season that is equally bad. A whole dedicated channel and what they show is frankly insulting (if they have full rights show all of F1). A “classic” f1 race is not one from 2 years ago!!!

      They tried F1 years ago and it died on its **** tho it was PPV. But here it’s going the same way also IF they asked Bernie for double points then I’d put money in it being from Sky as Bernie will listen to Sky much more than the BBC

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