Retiring Schumacher leaves Indian shores disappointed

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He may have won seven world championships since his 1991 debut at Spa in Belgium. He may have racked up a record 1560 points, won an eye-popping 91 Grand Prix from his 305 starts, and 155 podium finishes in all.

He may have even had a strong fifth-place finish at the first-ever Grand Prix of India, but Michael Schumacher of Germany and Mercedez AMG Petronas will leave Indian shores this time around a disappointed man.

Having done reasonably well in the three free practice sessions ahead of the Airtel Grand Prix of India 2012 at the Buddh International Circuit here, Schumacher’s car went off the boil in Saturday qualifying.

He started the race on Sunday from 14th on the grid, and by the time the cavalcade had reached the first corner, his race was as good as over.

Caught up the bunched traffic, Schumacher saw Jean Eric Vergne of Toro Rosso clip his right rear tyre which was cut open in the process. The rubber went rolling off the rim, forcing the German ace to limp around close to five kilometres on a steel rim showering sparks as he went for new shoes.

By the time he remerged from the pits Schumacher was almost a lap down on the leading pack and though he soldiered on going faster and faster lap by lap, a gearbox problem finally spelt an end to his last competitive drive on Indian soil with five laps of the race to go.

It was hugely disappointing for the thousands of his fans at the BIC here, many of whom had come with “Farewell Schumi” banners, and millions of others around the world. Not the way the maestro would have wanted his final race appearance here.

“That was a pretty unsatisfactory race today,” he said later in a display of masterly understatement.
“It was effectively over just after the start; I lost so much time getting back to the pits with the puncture that any hope of scoring points was gone.

“In the meantime, the pace was pretty good but I was too far behind to make up more than a few positions. In the end, we had to retire the car for technical reasons.” A racing incident, and that was that for the man who gave Ferrari back their mojo with five successive world championship titles after years in the wilderness.

Schumacher was classified as having finished in 22nd place, and a measure of his pace from the back of the pack comes in the fact that he had the ninth-quickest lap of the 24 racers here (1 minute, 29.230 seconds) against a race best of 1:28.203s by eventual winner Vettel.

Not the greatest of ways to make a final visit to the world’s newest Formula One circuit, to be certain.