Schumi's back?

Well atleast he has given a hint of that by driving superbly at San Marino. And mind you, the car is till not at its best.

After claiming his record 66th Pole Position (eclipsing Senna's), Schumi started well off the blocks on Sunday. It looked like Button would give him some competition but that soon vanished in the air with some poor pit strategy by Honda (Barichello was even worse off). By the first pit stop Alonso was close on Schumi's heels threatening to repeat last year's situation. Schumi had tried really hard with a second best car to overtake him last year but Alonso didn't give him an inch. It was a complete role reversal yesterday. It was stuff which makes for a great race. Almost everyone thought Schumi would budge due to his second-best car again but he proved why he is such a great driver. He knew he had problems with his brakes and the Renault was very good at corners. So slowed down more than necessary at the corners to make sure Alonso also braked early or too late which as a result made him drive wide off the racing line. Schumi was at his wily best - bringing all his experience to beat Alonso who definitely had the better car. All through the last 20 odd laps the difference was roughly 0.2 seconds. Which would have been enough to overtake a lesser driver. But Schumi actually made Alonso commit a couple of mistakes (as he was driving hard himself) during the last few laps and when he saw him going off the chicane, he increased his pace and the difference was then 1.8 seconds which was more than enough in the last 2 laps to see you home. While I've been a Schumi fan since I started following the sport a decade back, I love Alonso and Raikonnen because they are as good as Schumi. Alonso has brought an end to the Ferrari domination but its good for the sport as you need great drivers like him to make races like yesterday's so memorable and so sweet (for a Ferrari fan). Last I heard was Raikonnen was switching to Ferrari next season.

I really hope that the rest of the races are this close - total 'paisa vasool'!

Update: This was written yesterday, but I had a few problems with blogger and was not able to post it.