raymondu999 wrote:It was IMO just bad timing really. If they had let Michael announce retirement before they announced the Lewis move, it wouldn't look so much like being forced out - it would've been just Mercedes "filling up" the seat Schumacher vacated. But because Schumacher announced it after the Lewis move, it's almost as if the retirement was forced, because he couldn't find a better option.
I'm not saying he was forced out - but surely Cocles you can understand, given the chronology of the announcements, why people are thinking as such?
I agree with what you said that at face value it may seem that way, but that's just it. All it is is face value. The irony is that I'm a huge, die-hard Schumacher fan. When he announced this retirement, one of my first thoughts was, "He better have not been pushed out!" I went digging like everyone else and found nothing. No one else found anything either; it's the epitome of conjecture. Perhaps that's why it's such a sore spot for me. I feel it just makes us Schumacher fans look bad, "He'd never abandon us! He must have been pushed!" He didn't abandon us, he wasn't pushed, the man retired, and he was a professional until the very end. Guys, the fact that he attended the young drivers' test has only been made
more impressive, knowing that he already had retirement on his mind. I don't think us Schumacher fans are doing ourselves any favor by clinging so tightly to pure conjecture.
Personally, I'm thankful for Mercedes. If it weren't for Brawn's team, I doubt we would have had another three years of enjoying him on the grid, even if he was mid-field a lot of the time. I'm still glad he was there, and I love the narrative that Vettel accomplished all three of his titles with his hero on the grid. Seeing Schumacher waiting for Vettel as he got out of his car in Brazil was one of the highlights of the season for me. Imagine achieving the greatest accomplishment of your life, and right at that moment, there's your childhood hero, the guy whose poster hung on your wall, there he is to congratulate you, and say how proud he is of you. That's how I wanted Schumacher to end his career, not what we had in 2006, but passing the baton to his protege with a big, proud smile on his face. Did you see Schumacher after Brazil? The man was beaming. He could have been mistaken for Vettel's dad. That was awesome. Thank you Michael Schumacher.