Capello continues to underwhelm as the 'old guard' return

er a three week break, Formula One returned with a vengeance. Lewis Hamilton drove superbly from start to finish at Spa to win the Belgian Grand Prix and retake the lead at the top of the drivers championship with six races remaining. In another incident packed race, world champion Jenson Button crashed out in controversial fashion after a collision with world champion contender Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull, which saw Vettel salvage his race without being able to force his way into the points. This result potentially ends the title challenge for both drivers, with Vettel 31 points behind Hamilton and Button a further four points back from his team-mate.
In such an extraordinary season, it was not a surprise that the weekend at Spa lived up to expectations after the three week break for the drivers and teams to improve and modify their cars. And it was McClaren (and Hamilton in particular) who benefited most from the seance, as the 2008 champion drove a controlled race without letting the carnage around him phase him. He overtook previous championship Mark Webber on the first corner and never looked back, turning a four point deficit into a three point lead in the process.
But the main talking point surrounded the coming together between Button and Vettel which could prove crucial in the final reckoning. After a season littered with controversy over team disagreements and team orders, at least this incident surrounded a genuine (and entirely accidental) coming together on the race track between two opponents, but Button's anger was entirely understandable in the circumstances. As so often with sport, the weather played a part in proceedings, and Vettel isn't the first driver to have skidded in wet conditions. On the 15th lap, Vettel tried to overtake Button after gaining a run on him. He skidded on the wet track as the rain poured down, and careered into the Briton. That was the end of his race for Button (and possibly the end of his title defence) but somehow Vettel was able to recover and drive his car across the pit lane, where a quick wing change preceded his return to the track.
The immediate stewards enquiry which followed, which resulted in a drive through penalty for the German for causing an avoidable collision, will have been of no consolation to Button, who was well aware of the consequences of his unfortunate turn of events: 'all I felt was a really big bang in the sidepod and I lost control immediately. I don't know what he was playing at really. From the point of view of the championship it is a massive blow.' To be blunt, that is stating the obvious, and even with 25 points for a race win, with just six races left it looks a tall order for the chasing pack of Vettel, Button and Alonso to make up the ground on Hamilton and Webber.
If Hamilton is going to be the hero when the curtain falls on the F1 season is Abu Dhabi in November, then the villain may well end up being Vettel. Driver for driver, he has been the quickest on the track this season, to the extent that his own team principle Christian Horner deemed to declare him Red Bull's number one driver (a statement his team-mate Webber did not agree with wholeheartedly. As the BBC's Andrew Benson said in retrospect, 'Spa was yet another example of Vettel's propensity to make criticial - and very costly - errors. Very succinctly put, and such has been the calamitous nature of the Germans's season, that rather than leading the championship (as he really should be given his qualifying performances) he is not even in the picture with half a dozen races left. Hamilton, on the other hand, has done remarkably well considering McClaren have found themselves trailing in the wake of the superior Red Bull so often. He ranks his win this weekend, in the rapidly changing conditions, as one of his best, saying afterwards, 'a race like this can be a lottery, and I'm so happy to come out on top. It almost feels like it is my first win it's phenomenal!' If he comes out on top in six races time, his achievement will surely rank as a greater one than his championship win in 2008, where he pipped Massa's Ferrari to the title on the final lap of the final race of the season.
The disagreement between Button and Vettel was, however, yet another example of the darker side of the sport. This season has been one of the most exciting in recent memory - the changes in the scoring system and the presence of three competitive teams (Red Bull, McClaren and Ferrari) have definitely contributed to this. But with the stakes so high, it is inevitable teams (and individuals, such as Michael Schumacher, who endangered the life of his former team-mate Rubens Barichello over the small matter of one point) are going to go to any lengths to win for the teams, but more importantly themselves. The three top teams have certainly seen examples of this in the past six months, with none of the so called 'team-mates' living up to that name as Webber and Vettel at Red Bull, the Brits in the McClaren paddock and Alonso and Felipe Massa for Ferrari have punctuated the season with almost constant bickering over supposed team orders, and their ranking in the team. on the plus side, most of the races this season have been incident packed - but whether that is good for the integrity of the sport is another question entirely.
One of the best performances in Spa was seven times world champion Michael Schumacher, who fought his way through the grid at the Belgian Grand Prix having qualified on the back row in 21st place, he will have been relatively pleased with his seventh place finish which yielded a respectable six points. But this hardly adds up to the title challenge he boasted about when he made his return to the sport after a three year absence (not including his time as a replacement for the injured Massa at Ferrari last season. Schumacher's resilient effort at Spa still left him no-where near the championship challenge he promised when he signed up for Mercedes, as he sits in tenth place with 44 points, one behind his compatriot Adrian Sutil. When he signed up for Mercedes in January, although he was pleased that his team-mate Nico Rosberg was going to be given equality with him, he stated in no uncertain terms 'I expect to challenge for the title.'
But at 41 years old, it is perhaps no surprise that he has failed to even come close to fulfilling this promise. With the likes of Hamilton, Button and Alonso still thoroughbreds in comparison, and quality starlets like Rosberg and Robert Kubica coming through the ranks to be consistent performers, it was always likely to be a tall order. Formula One is a young man's game, and so this season has proved. The only reason for Schumacher to return to the sport at his age must be the need to compete at the highest level in the rarefied atmosphere F1 creates. He doesn't need to gain anything financially after all he achieved in his career, and with his consultancy role he had at Ferrari as well as numerous endorsement and sponsorship deals with sports and leisure companies alike. If anything, his lacklustre return to the sport have affected his marketability. It can't be for the glory - he is the most successful driver in F1 history, with 91 wins to his name as well as 144 podium finishes, and having won two championships more than his nearest challenger Juan Manuel Fangio. But rather than retire gracefully, he has returned to a high pressure sport, both physically and mentally, and has put his neck on the line with nothing left to prove - and the guillotine has dropped emphatically.
What is it that makes the greatest not know when to give up, and keep pushing for one last big day? Schumacher is not the first to aim for such lofty ambition, and, to coin an (admittedly rather cliched) phrase, try to bank cheques his body couldn't cash. Lance Armstrong had a similar fate befall him this year and last to an extent, in an even more strenuous sport. He returned to cycling after a four year absence last year, at the ripe old age of 37, and followed up a third place finish in his Tour de France comeback with a disappointing 23rd place before packing away his bike for good. After the adversity the Texan overcame to win his seven Tour wins, he definitely had nothing left to prove. Completing an illustrious trio is the great Muhammad Ali, Losing the fight of the century to Joe Frazier and later to Ken Norton in the halycon era of heavyweight boxing was one thing - but losing three of his last four fight, two to Leon Spinks and Trevor Berbick (at the ages of 36 and 39 respectively), was a quite ignominious way for the greatest man to ever don gloves to bow out. Surely it makes sense to quit while you're ahead, with a reputation untainted by respective failure. That is what every top sportsman craves - the tight to quit on their terms. But there seems to be a personality confliction shared by many individual sportsmen, where they can hog the glory but also shoulder the burden of failure.
The lustre of chasing a seemingly impossible dream must have been a big draw for the German. But as Nike's adverts famously say, 'Impossible is Nothing.' Schumacher has shown this to be painfully untrue. And if 'Impossible is Nothing,' then the future is Hamilton's, not Schumacher's.