{"id":8820,"date":"2010-10-04T11:39:49","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T15:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=8820"},"modified":"2010-10-04T11:39:49","modified_gmt":"2010-10-04T15:39:49","slug":"schumacher-comeback-decision-a-disaster-irvine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/schumacher-comeback-decision-a-disaster-irvine\/","title":{"rendered":"Schumacher comeback decision &#8216;a disaster&#8217; &#8211; Irvine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Schumacher&#8217;s decision to return to formula one this season was &#8220;a disaster&#8221;, according to his former Ferrari teammate.<\/p>\n<p>Eddie Irvine, who openly acknowledges he lacked the talent to beat the German during their time together in the late 90s, thinks the 41-year-old should now admit it is he who is struggling for raw pace.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;On paper, his return wasn&#8217;t a bad idea,&#8221; the Ulsterman told Italy&#8217;s La Gazzetta dello Sport in an interview.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But he had already lost something in 2006, when Felipe Massa was often in front of him.\u00a0 Three years later he has lost even more.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The result?\u00a0 It&#8217;s a disaster,&#8221; said 44-year-old Irvine, who has made a fortune in property investment.<\/p>\n<p>He said Schumacher should stop making &#8220;excuses&#8221; for struggling to keep up with Nico Rosberg in the sister Mercedes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s &#8216;this is a new team, with new people&#8217;.\u00a0 But in his first year at Ferrari, the car was rubbish but he won three races,&#8221; said Irvine, who in the sister car finished the 1996 world championship in tenth place.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, Rosberg is currently seventh in the W01, three places ahead of Schumacher.<\/p>\n<p>Irvine also countered suggestions that Schumacher is good at building a team, for example by leading the path on development matters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ferrari took him for his talent; he had no idea about how the car was behaving.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Michael is a great driver; you can give him a suitcase with four wheels and he&#8217;ll drive it quickly.\u00a0 Schumacher&#8217;s strength is the driving, that&#8217;s all,&#8221; said Irvine.<br \/>\n<em><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">\u00a0\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Schumacher&#8217;s decision to return to formula one this season was &#8220;a disaster&#8221;, according to his former Ferrari teammate. Eddie Irvine, who openly acknowledges he lacked the talent to beat the German during their time together in the late 90s, thinks the 41-year-old should now admit it is he who is struggling for raw pace. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[312,5262,93,5340,92],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8821,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8820\/revisions\/8821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}