In a class of his own

A FEW months ago, after Michael Schumacher had won a Grand Prix - he would ultimately end up with a record nine victories - during the 2001 Formula One season, one was witness to a revealing piece of conversation involving a pair of motor racing addicts in Chennai.

A few of us had just watched the German maestro drive a race like he alone can, winning it with something to spare.

Without waiting to watch the usual champagne spouting podium celebrations, our host switched off the TV, his face a mask of disappointment.

"It's become too damn predictable," he said.

"Predictably boring," another friend chipped in.

"You know, I somehow don't like him. Okay, he is a great driver. The best there is. But there is no thrill in watching him win," said our host.

Here is a man who is clearly miles ahead of every other driver of his generation, a driver who can only be compared to the great masters of the past - men such as Juan Manuel Fangio and Ayrton Senna - and one who seems destined to break every record there is on the fast lane to immortality.

And, in the face of such incontrovertible greatness, such sublime driving skills, such consummate mastery behind the wheel, the response of a handful of motor racing fans in a corner of the world - Chennai - that is nowhere on the sport's map may actually capsulise the very essence of the attitudes of a vast majority of the sport's addicts to the Schumacher phenomenon.

Barring the adoration lavished by German and - because of his association with Ferrari - Italian fans, the rest of them can't seem to get suitably excited by the exploits of a man who has accomplished what he has by marrying his natural talents with a willingness to make enormous sacrifices, shutting out almost everything else, in the pursuit of career goals.

"The champion nobody cares about," screamed a Time magazine Cover Story caption several years ago when Ivan Lendl remorselessly dominated the world of men's tennis.

You can hardly say that about Schumacher. But, then, he is, on the other hand, the champion everybody takes for granted.

Ah, Schumacher? Oh, he should win. He will win. So what?

But why? How can such a consistent display of stunning excellence in one of the most fiercely competitive sports in the world come to be taken for granted?

It has to do with perfection, almost superhuman perfection.

We live in a world where perfection - of the sort symbolised by Schumacher - can actually be a handicap when it comes to popular appeal. For, most of us like our heroes with feet of clay.

There is a touch of romance to vulnerability. A hole here, another there, makes for a perfect picture, although it is not a perfect picture in reality.

"Michael wins races that he should not do, and does not lose races he should win," said Ross Brawn, the English engineer who has been instrumental to Ferrari's success.

That's the problem, really. No, we are not talking about winning races that he should not do; that's fine. But it is the metronomic consistency that sees him not lose races that he should win which turns the German into a cold, robotic superman in some fans' eyes.

A few years ago, a Times (London) interviewer asked Schumacher if it was daring that helped him go faster than others on the race track.

"No," said the champion. "It is natural talent... and discipline. Those are the two things."

When it comes to truly legendary status in the world of sport, those are the only things. Don Bradman in cricket, Jack Nicklaus in golf, Michael Jordan in basketball, Pele in football, Pete Sampras in tennis... each of these giants backed up their phenomenal natural talents with discipline.

But, curiously enough, it is the lack of the second virtue - discipline - that makes for romance. Somehow in many football fans' imagination a George Best or a Diego Maradona would seem rather more heroic than a Pele. And so would an indisciplined Brian Lara compared to a Sachin Tendulkar who is very much in the Schumacher mould.

But there can be no arguments about the quality and consistency of support that Schumacher has received from the Ferrari team.

Over the last few years, ever since the great driver joined them, Ferrari has worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week, season after season, trying to plug the holes and turn their cars into wonderfully competitive machines.

But, let's face it: which other driver who was quite as gifted as Schumacher would have even considered joining a struggling Ferrari team in the first place, in 1996. At that time, the Scuderia had won just two races in five seasons!

Of course, it was the inspiration provided by Schumacher's arrival that saw the Ferrari engineers, back-room boys and the mechanics get together with tremendous enthusiasm in an attempt to mount a serious challenge.

The moment the man with the bull neck and angular chin - one who has such a low resting pulse rate that you have to go back to Bjorn Borg at his peak in the world of tennis to find another champion with the same sort of low pulse rate - joined the team, Ferrari was on a roll, so to say.

Not only does Schumacher have a great sense of timing on the tracks but he also has such an analytical mind and a keen eye for detail that he has been able to provide the Ferrari team with valuable feedback time after time.

And in only his second year with Ferrari, Schumacher almost clinched the title, winning six races in 1997. When he attempted to ram his arch-rival Jacques Villeneuve into retirement in the Canadian Grand Prix, at once the Schumacher hate campaign picked up further momentum.

To be sure, that was an arrogant, ill-advised move. And Schumacher paid the penalty for it - he had his second place stripped - although many people still think that the penalty did not match up with the seriousness of the offence and the champion driver should have been banned for a full season.

If you are looking for flaws in an otherwise flawless champion, there is one for you - Schumacher has always believed he could get away with anything, simply because he is Michael Schumacher.

It is this in-your-face attitude that seems to put off fans and prevents him from becoming a truly popular champion.

Another great champion - one who is, arguably, the greatest to get behind the wheel of a Formula One car - had just such an attitude. But Aryton Senna had a sort of other-worldly quality that gave him a God-like impunity. When he did it, anything seemed right.

Schumacher, as outrageously gifted as he is, as remarkably one-pointed as he is in his focus, is certainly nowhere as charismatic as the incomparable Brazilian genius who was perhaps the only driver in the entire history of motor racing who was more naturally talented than the German champion.

Yet, Senna is history. Schumacher is the present...and the immediate future, too, of the sport. Watch every race in which he drives while he is still around. For, it will be a long, long time before you'd get to set eyes on another driver like Michael Schumacher.

Another like Senna? Not ever. Another like Schumacher? Highly unlikely.