And its announcement that it will review the rule itself – which basically means it is almost certain to be removed from the statute book before next season – will also come under fire.

Ferrari, some will say, have got away with manipulating the world championship – giving Fernando Alonso seven points more than he deserves by allowing him to win a race that his team-mate Felipe Massa was leading.

Some will argue Ferrari have cheated the sport’s fans by denying them the chance to watch a race to the flag in Hockenheim.

And, it will probably be claimed, the FIA is betraying the sport it is charged with protecting by removing a rule that is intended to stop teams doing what some have described as ‘fixing’ races.

The FIA will release the full reasons behind its decision on Thursday, at which point it may also become a little clearer why Ferrari handled the situation in Germany so clumsily.

But already, on Twitter and other social network sites, these criticisms – and others – have been widely disseminated. And they will doubtless get a further airing in other forms of media over the next few days.

They are all valid points of view. The problem is, they don’t stand up to the reality of F1.

In an ideal world, of course team orders would be outlawed. All sports fans want to watch a grand prix in which the drivers are all competing equally for victory.

But, realistically, they are an inherent and intrinsic part of F1. Team orders are an inevitable, unavoidable and unpreventable result of the fact that only one man can win the world championship, and there are two drivers in each team.

Sooner or later, when drivers from more than one team are disputing the title, those teams have to make a call to ask their other driver to do what he can to help the man better placed in the championship to prevail over his rival from another team.

That was the position Ferrari, who had not won since the first race of the season in Bahrain, found themselves in at Hockenheim.

Alonso passes Massa for German GP lead (UK users only)

Mathematically, Massa still had a chance of the championship – it was, after all, only the 11th of 19 races this season. Realistically, though, even by then Alonso was Ferrari’s only title contender.

Ferrari had not won since the first race of the season in Bahrain and here they were looking at a one-two at a time when Alonso, after some appalling luck in the previous two races, needed a leg up to revive his title challenge.

As such, the German Grand Prix was the point of this season at which Ferrari had to make the call to back one driver over the other and ask Massa to support Alonso’s campaign – hence making it clear to Massa, who had taken the lead at the start as Alonso fought to pass the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel, that he should let his faster team-mate by.

Red Bull and McLaren – whose drivers have been more evenly matched and are both in the title race – haven’t got to that place yet. But they probably will soon.

Will it be more acceptable for coming later in the season? Some will say so. There is, though, no logic in that argument – you get the same 25 points for winning the first race as you do the last.

Some teams have been arguing in recent weeks to keep the team orders rule, but not because they don’t think they will be imposing team orders themselves in the future.

No one in F1 believes team orders can be eradicated. After all, if a team want to order their drivers to finish in a particular order, there are plenty of ways of doing so without it ever becoming public.

But some do believe that if teams are to employ them, they should do so in a way that is more subtle than Ferrari managed at Hockenheim – so they do not upset those parts of the audience who do not understand a) that team orders have been part of grand prix racing since it started more than 100 years ago; and b) that a rule banning them is unenforcable.

There is, though, an important philosophical question here for F1 – one that goes to the root of how it will conduct itself in the future, on all issues, not just this one.

Does it want to be a sport that deceives its public, or one that is open with it? Because for as long as it has a rule banning team orders, it will always be the first.

As far as the watching public is concerned, which is worse? To know that a driver has let his team-mate past to win in the interests of his title chances? Or to believe you have watched a race when in fact you have not?

Arguing to keep the rule but letting teams go on covertly breaking it is effectively saying you don’t mind being lied to as long as you don’t know about it. And that doesn’t alter the fact that, even if teams do it covertly, they have still broken the rules.

And don’t be under the misconception that only Ferrari are guilty of employing team orders.

As David Coulthard said after the German race: “Every team in this pit lane gives team orders and anyone who says they don’t is lying.”

The rule that has caused so much controversy was introduced during the reign of the previous FIA president, Max Mosley, following the uproar after the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, when then Ferrari team principal Jean Todt ordered Rubens Barrichello to hand victory to Michael Schumacher.

In that case, the criticisms were understandable, for several reasons: it was only the sixth race of a season that Ferrari were already dominating and would clearly go on doing; Schumacher already had a substantial championship lead and didn’t need the extra points; it was one of the rare occasions when Barrichello was faster than Schumacher all weekend.

Todt is now the FIA president and – aware of the possible conflict of interest, and of the fact that some would say he was favouring Ferrari – he did not take part in Wednesday’s hearing, handing the reins to his deputy, Graham Stoker.

The decision was – as with other matters in this controversy – more to do with perception than reality.

It looked good, but it was unnecessary. Firstly, because Todt and Ferrari did not part on good terms, so he had no reason to want to help them out. But also because, as one of the more astute political operators in F1, it is hardly beyond Todt’s wit to tell Stoker what he wanted to happen, should that have been his desire.

As it turned out, clearly Todt and the FIA were able to look at this important decision with the dispassionate approach it required.

So far, Todt has been a very different FIA president from Mosley, whose 18 years at the top of motorsport ended last year when he was effectively forced out by the F1 teams, who had grown tired of what they had come to see as his autocratic and arbitrary governance.

Todt, by contrast, has taken a low-key, conciliatory, inclusive approach. As the first major F1 disciplinary hearing of his tenure, Wednesday’s events were being watched with interest to see whether that continued. Now, it seems clear that will be the hallmark of the Todt presidency.

Mosley, incidentally, made his position in this matter clear a couple of weeks ago, when he told the German newspaper Die Welt that he thought the Ferrari drivers should be docked their points.

If Todt had wanted to send a message that his is a new, independent regime, he could not have made it clearer.

He – and the FIA – should be applauded for recognising the rule banning team orders was not only unenforceable, but also a betrayal of the history of the sport. And for having the courage to do the right thing.

All credit goes to the Source of this article.

In one sense, it is, because there has been a month’s gap between races.

But however much Red Bull’s rivals, most notably McLaren, tried to switch off during the sport’s summer break, the performance advantage rolled out in Budapest by Adrian Newey’s RB6 flying machine haunted their holiday down-time.

Without doubt, the longest faces can currently be found in the McLaren garage. The team’s renowned resilience and resourcefulness look like being tested to the full.

Publicly, team officials dismiss the idea that the next two races in Belgium on Sunday and Italy in two weeks’ time will make or break their title challenge this season.

Privately, however, there is reluctant acknowledgement that they have to score heavily at these final two European low downforce tracks where straight-line speed – where McLaren are stronger than their title rivals – can be decisive.

As one team member put it succinctly: “It’ll be all over for us, if we don’t. Red Bull will walk it in Singapore (first of the final five long-haul races), and be strong elsewhere.”

While Sebastian Vettel happily described himself as “carefully optimistic” about Red Bull’s prospects for the weekend, the normally upbeat Lewis Hamilton has been unnaturally pessimistic, seemingly resigned to chasing Red Bull’s shadows for the remainder of the year.

“I don’t think anything’s going to change here. The car’s still not quick enough compared to the others.

“We have to understand where the extra time and downforce is – and only once we’ve done that can we really move forward,” he said on Thursday.

Now, I understand the McLaren engineers believe that a clever trade-off between more downforce and less drag thanks to their efficient F-duct aerodynamic device should make a difference here.

Yes, the Red Bulls will be quick through the long corners in Spa’s middle sector, but McLaren should have the stronger performance along the straights in the first and final sectors to offset Red Bull’s greater grip.

Not enough, probably, to find the margin of 1.7 seconds that Red Bull enjoyed over McLaren in Hungary but sufficient to be significant podium contenders.

Nonetheless, such a downbeat assessment of his car’s current competitiveness is a vivid contrast to the optimism within McLaren at Silverstone last month.

That’s when the team introduced their version of the ‘blown diffuser’ concept which has been an integral part of the Red Bull design from the first race in Bahrain.

Unfortunately the gains have not come close to fulfilling McLaren predictions. If anything, Button and Hamilton have found the car’s balance worse.

Red Bull have continued to improve their performance since the British Grand Prix – as have Ferrari, whose own version of the blown diffuser has worked without problems since it was introduced in Valencia, the race before Silverstone.

McLaren, by contrast, have lost the edge they had enjoyed since their one-two at the Turkish Grand Prix and have now lost the lead in both the drivers’ and the constructors’ championships.

Now, we’ve seen this before when Mark Webber and Red Bull hit the front after Monaco. It appeared that the team were all set to capitalise on their advantage and take charge of the title race.

On that occasion McLaren struck back.

But this time they feel more vulnerable to attack, and their frustration is fuelled by the continuing controversy over flexible bodywork.

They believe that Red Bull and Ferrari have made their performance leaps because their front wings and the front part of the car’s floor – frequently referred to as the ‘bib’ – are flexing excessively outside the regulation limits.

In McLaren’s view, their extra downforce gains are, therefore, illegal.

If you watched the last two races, you would have seen slow-motion footage of the front wings of the Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren while the cars were on the track.

While McLaren’s is very stiff and well clear of the road, the wings on the Red Bull and Ferrari appear to be almost touching it.

The team believes that the new FIA load tests, particularly on the rigidity of the floor at the Italian Grand Prix, will have an impact on their rivals’ level of performance.

In the words of Jenson Button on Thursday: “I’d be amazed if there wasn’t a difference (at Monza).”

One engineer I spoke to claims that Red Bull and Ferrari have a series of sections in their floor which allows the ‘bib’ to move, creating greater downforce behind the front wing.

The regulations state that the floor must be one solid piece.

Another engineer told me that if the other two teams have been doing this and are forced to make changes, then McLaren could find an extra 0.7secs, bringing them back into much stronger contention.

Not just at Monza, but for the championship run-in.

But he also stressed that the team has to be prepared for Red Bull and Ferrari to pass the new tests, in which case McLaren will be left to rely on their own technical talents to make up lost ground.

It should be emphasised that each time this season Red Bull have come under scrutiny for alleged technical irregularities, the FIA has consistently found no fault.

“We are confident that we will comply with whatever tests there are,” said team principal Christian Horner.

“The new test will affect us only as much as any other team.

“If people are complaining, it shows that they don’t know what we’re up to.

Remember also that where once McLaren’s championship ambitions looked to be a straight fight against Red Bull, now Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso is back in the thick of it, only 20 points off leader Webber.

The World Motorsport Council hearing on 8 September into the Hockenheim team orders controversy hangs darkly over their challenge but their rate of development continues apace.

Ferrari, I understand, have reworked the rear of their car – with a new blown diffuser in which the exhaust gases blow through as well as over the new floor for the first time, as well as modified rear suspension and a new gearbox casing.

Their concern is over engines. Both Alonso and Felipe Massa have already used six of their season’s allocation of eight.

If they follow the lead of some teams planning to use new units at both the power tracks of Spa and Monza, that could become a big issue for Alonso over the final five races.

For this weekend, though, Hamilton and Button, F1’s two most recent champions – both of them wet-weather specialists – have to hope that McLaren can maximise what they have, otherwise they will feel like they’re pushing water up Eau Rouge until November.

All credit goes to the Source of this article.

That means you have a chance to watch the full ‘Grand Prix’ highlights programme of the time as well as the shorter highlights edits we produce from the other selected races, which were the 1987, 1993 and 2000 Belgian Grands Prix.

There will also be short and long highlights of last year’s event.

The extended race highlights are embedded below, with links to the other events underneath.

WATCH SHORT HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 1979 BELGIAN GRAND PRIX
WATCH SHORT HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 1987 BELGIAN GRAND PRIX
WATCH SHORT HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 1993 BELGIAN GRAND PRIX
WATCH SHORT HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2000 BELGIAN GRAND PRIX
WATCH SHORT HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2009 BELGIAN GRAND PRIX
WATCH EXTENDED HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2009 BELGIAN GRAND PRIX

The classic races will be broadcast on the BBC red button in the UK on satellite and cable television from 1500 BST on Wednesday 25 August until 1900 on Friday. Unfortunately, they will not be available on Freeview this time.

The 1979 race was a defining moment in a season that delivered Ferrari their final drivers’ title for 21 years and it was the overwhelming favourite among respondents to my last blog.

Ferrari’s Jody Scheckter took the chequered flag after an epic race-long battle also involving the Ligiers of Patrick Depailler and Jacques Laffite and the Williams of Alan Jones.

It was one of three victories by the South African on his way to winning the title that year. But the star of the race – and the season as a whole – was Scheckter’s team-mate Gilles Villeneuve.

Although Scheckter joined Ferrari for 1979 as the man expected to lead their title charge, he had not won in the five races preceding Belgium while his younger team-mate had taken two brilliant victories.

Back then, the Belgian race was held at Zolder, before its move to Spa in the early 1980s, and the Canadian qualified one place ahead of Scheckter in sixth.

But before the race had a chance to settle down, Villeneuve’s hopes of victory were dashed when he got tangled up in a collision between Scheckter and the Williams of Clay Regazzoni, and broke his nose cone.

He returned to the pits for a new one, and rejoined in 23rd, and last, place, whereupon he began a quite stunning comeback drive, scything through the field and setting fastest laps as he climbed back into the points, which went down to sixth place.

His charge came to a temporary halt behind the obstinate Riccardo Patrese’s Arrows for 10 laps, before he passed the Italian at the chicane in a move that combined skill and muscularity, feinting one way then the other before forcing his way alongside and banging wheels as he went past.

Villeneuve then set off after Didier Pironi’s Tyrrell, closing a 14-second gap in 10 laps before starting to chase down Laffite. With a 21-second advantage and the race almost over, the chase appeared fruitless, but Villeneuve – as was his way – gave it a go.

He reduced the gap by 11 seconds in seven laps but as they headed into their last lap, the Ligier was edging clear again, and Villeneuve’s Ferrari sounded terrible. It was running out of fuel. He made it round to 300m from the finish line before the flat 12 engine coughed its last, and its driver was classified seventh, costing him four points that would have come from finishing third.

After the race, Villeneuve appeared satisfied to have demonstrated once again that he was the fastest driver of the day. But according to Gerry Donaldson’s excellent biography, he later confessed to his wife, Joann: “I hope those four points are not going to be important when this is all over, but I’m afraid they will be. Maybe I’ve just lost the championship.”

There would be other dropped points that year, and Villeneuve ultimately lost the title at the Italian Grand Prix, obeying team orders to sit behind his team-mate on his way to victory. But the fact remains that, as Villeneuve suspected, had he finished third at Zolder, he would indeed have been world champion rather than Scheckter.

Zolder was not a popular track, and it was even less so after Villeneuve was killed there in 1982, by which time he had become firmly established as the finest driver in the world. But this race was a deserving selection this time.

It’s certainly worth watching the other highlights, though, for Mika Hakkinen’s stunning pass of Michael Schumacher in 2000, the controversy between Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna in 1987, Damon Hill’s victory over Michael Schumacher and Alain Prost in 1993 and what looks like being Kimi Raikkonen’s final career F1 victory in 2009.

I hope you enjoy them all.

All credit goes to the Source of this article.

The Hungarian Grand Prix was full of action and incident. For Red Bull it was a sweet and sour race with another win for Mark Webber but Sebastien Vettel was left fuming after his safety car penalty.

I’m a massive Michael Schumacher fan but his dangerous move on Rubens Barichello was over the top and exposed flaws in the seven-time champion’s character.

Watch my thoughts on the Hungarian GP in the video below and send me any questions you might have about F1 in general, or the races specifically.

IF YOU ARE OUTSIDE THE UK, CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO

All credit goes to the Source of this article.

Many of the goods on sale – model cars, badges, T-shirts and mugs – bear the slogan ‘Comeback – his biggest challenge’. That tag-line has turned out to be uncannily accurate.

Schumacher’s marketing team are putting a positive spin on what has been a difficult return to Formula 1.

But there is no hiding the reality that the seven-time world champion has struggled on his comeback, out-qualified by Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg all but twice in 2010.

Best finishes of fourth in Barcelona and Istanbul have done little for Schumacher’s quest for an eighth crown and with more than half the season run he is 109 points off Lewis Hamilton’s championship lead.

But are the German fans still buying into the idea that Schumacher’s comeback at the age of 41 is simply another test to prove that he is the greatest Formula 1 driver of all time?

“I’ve been a Schumacher fan for 14 years,” says Michael Dlunnal (pictured below), who is decked out in face paint, a Mercedes shirt, custom-made Schumacher jeans, scarf and flag.

“I was watching TV when I saw that Schumacher was driving again for Mercedes and I sat down, said and did nothing.

“I was thinking: ‘Oh my goodness, now I need to change all my outfit from red to silver.’”

Bugt when I asked him if he was sad about Schumacher’s results this season, he replied: “I’m sorry, my English is not so good.”

It is almost incomprehensible for many of Schumacher’s die-hard fans that the seven-time world champion is not competing at the front.

In many ways, Schumacher – the sport’s record holder for titles (seven), points scored (1,369) and wins (91) among other marks – has succeeded in transcending Formula 1.

German journalist Michael Schmidt, who writes for Auto Motor Und Sport magazine, explains: “Michael was a hero in Germany and without him Formula 1 did not exist.

“I remember the guy who was running television channel RTL, who have the rights for F1, saying: ‘There are sports that are interesting to us – football, tennis and Michael Schumacher.’”

“The media here only sold Michael Schumacher, not the sport.

“When Sebastian Vettel was driving for the championship last year the TV figures were only 50% of what they have now with Michael, which is ridiculous.

Michael Schumacher merchandise for sale at the German Grand Prix

“So he is a hero for people and the fact that he came back has made him an even bigger hero.”

Organisers of the grand prix at Hockenheim say ticket sales initially rose around Christmas time when Schumacher confirmed that he was coming out of retirement.

But as the season wore on – and Schumacher continued to struggle – sales have declined and a circuit spokesperson conceded: “The Schumacher-effect is not visible.”

An estimated 65,000-70,000 people are expected to turn up for race day, with 180,000 fans due over the three days.

At the last race here in 2008, 220,000 people came through the gates, although officials say past attendance figures were generously estimated.

Among the wearers of Schumacher Ferrari-era caps and Silver Arrows garb at the track, many are more realistic about the 41-year-old’s performance this season.

“I respect Michael when he says he wants to win the title,” says Sascha Stappel from Illesheim. “But I think it’s a long, hard way for him.

“I don’t know if he has enough time to make it because Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari have more chance of winning in the years ahead. He has no chance to win with Mercedes or this car.

“Formula 1 is better than the last time he was competing; the young drivers like Sebastian Vettel have more power and mental strength.”

Gerd Faehler from Berlin agrees: “We were more or less expecting him to struggle because after he joined Ferrari in 1996 he didn’t win anything in his first season.

Michael Schumacher signs an autograph on his way into the Hockenheim on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

“I don’t think he has lost much of his performance but it might take Mercedes another two years to get back to the top because the distance from the top teams is too far at the moment.”

If the car is to blame then fans can rest assured that Mercedes are already focusing a share of their programme on an improved 2011 version.

But Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn, who masterminded all seven of Schumacher’s titles at Benetton and Ferrari, says Schumacher is still learning, in particular how to adapt his driving style to this year’s narrower front tyres.

The fans here in Germany, decked out in Schumacher memorabilia, are only too aware of his past achievements – although the gentleman in the red ‘Schumacher – Six-time World Champion’ T-shirt might need bringing up to date on the 2004 season.

Schumacher’s return to the sport represented a risk, not only to his fragile neck, but to his reputation.

“I start to doubt whether he can be a winning driver again,” says Schmidt, who has seen every single F1 race Schumacher has contested.

“If he doesn’t pick up speed again I really have to say maybe he should not have come back.

“You couldn’t expect him to start at the same level where he finished in 2006 but step-by-step people are starting to doubt.

“There is a danger he is damaging his legacy, especially among the people who don’t look behind the scenes and only see the results.”

Schumacher is a very private person and getting an inkling of just how he is reflecting on his decision to return to the sport is difficult.

But Brawn, who counts Schumacher as a friend, says in an interview with the BBC: “I’ve heard lots of criticism but what people are not seeing is that Michael is loving it.

“People ought to realise that and allow him a little bit of slack as he’s really enjoying himself, really enjoying the challenge and is working hard to make things better.”

Even if results do not improve in the remainder of this season, Schumacher, whose profile looms large from billboards, t-shirts and banners in Hockenheim, is still an irresistible force in Formula 1.

Supporter Stappel adds: “If Schumacher is 10th, 20th or first – that is not the reason we come to the race.

“The main reason is that we can see him race. He’s a superstar and yes, you can say that we are happy simply that he is back.”

All credit goes to the Source of this article.

But the doubters and the critics remain to be convinced that he will ever recapture the brilliance that set him apart from his rivals and took him to a record haul of seven world titles.

Even a number of current drivers appear to be unimpressed by what they have seen of him over the first half of the season.

Lewis Hamilton, for example, yesterday described the Mercedes pairing of Schumacher and Nico Rosberg as “two solid drivers”.

When asked whether he thought Schumacher had made it difficult for him to overtake in the rain in this year’s Chinese Grand Prix, he just smiled broadly, paused then said: “If you think that, that’s your opinion.”

Jenson Button admitted that he “didn’t expect him to be struggling at this stage”.

Speaking privately, another championship contender who raced against him before he retired in 2006 firmly believes that the German will never be the supreme force he formerly was.

Not surprisingly, it being the German Grand Prix, this weekend has a very strong Schumacher focus.

It’s the first time since his return to F1 that he is racing in front of grandstands which became a Rhineland forest of flags and banners in his honour during his championship years.

But what’s given the attention such momentum is the level of Schumacher’s performance in 2010. He’s beaten his team-mate just twice in 10 races, and been out-qualified eight times. Hardly champion form.

And Schumacher knows that. Some 109 points off Hamilton’s championship lead, he’s understandably ruled himself out of championship contention this year.

Yet he remains adamant that his unwavering aim to win an eighth world title next season is entirely plausible.

On one level, that attitude is entirely expected. This is, after all, Michael Schumacher we’re talking about – one of the greatest drivers the world has ever seen, a man who never knew when he was beaten, and who was able to rise above uncompetitive machinery or treacherous conditions, or a combination of both, and still come out on top.

But on another level is Schumacher kidding himself, and only adding to the expectation which he has frequently described as being “unrealistic”?

Can he ever hit the high notes like he did before he retired – or is he just going to have to accept an unaccustomed place within the pack, albeit F1’s most competitive pack in almost two decades?

It’s hard to think of a classic Schumacher move this season, isn’t it?

That pass on Fernando Alonso at the final corner in Monaco owed more to opportunism than outrageous talent, and, of course, was later penalised.

He’s admitted that he’s not at the level he wants, still unable to get the maximum out of the new narrower front tyres.

The 2010 cars don’t suit his more aggressive style of driving, where he prefers to turn in to a corner with massive front grip. Currently he’s not finding the downforce he needs. He’s losing out particularly in the slower corners, which require precision and technique under these new conditions.

“He’s having to get used to feeling a tyre, controlling a tyre and finding the best way to get lap times from a tyre,” Ross Brawn, his Mercedes team principal, has told BBC Sport in an interview to be broadcast on BBC One this weekend.

“He’s finding it pretty challenging and we’re not getting the results we expect.”

Another team source has told me that Schumacher can’t overload the tyres like he used to. It means he ends up fighting the car and over-driving to make up time which he can see he’s losing to his team-mate.

That causes errors like the one which wrecked his final qualifying lap at Silverstone, where until the third part of the session he’d been the quicker Mercedes driver.

He was around three tenths of a second off Rosberg in the first race, and despite improvements at Spain, when a longer wheelbase car was introduced, and at Turkey, the gap has not closed.

Similarly, by trying to ride the kerbs like he used to, Schumacher has damaged the chassis. He’s now on his third of the season.

Lack of testing has clearly handicapped him. “It’s been a big challenge for him,” according to Brawn, who supervised so many of the endless miles Schumacher put in around Ferrari’s Fiorano test track, working his way through problems.

“I know when a lot of Michelin teams went on the Bridgestones (tyres in 2007), it took them six months to get competitive again – and some drivers suffered more than others in that phase,” said Brawn.

More time in the car would be one part of the solution but the regulations don’t presently allow for that.

Nor can Schumacher easily make up for the three seasons he was out of the cockpit.

Rubens Barrichello, only three years younger and a former team-mate, says he’s driving better than ever but he’s been involved in all the crucial phases of an F1 car’s evolution in that time and as a result, he’s been able to adapt to the frequent changes.

Schumacher, by contrast, stopped, and switched off that part of his life, and you can’t just flick it back on.

But there is another view – expressed to me this week by two rival engineers, one of whom worked alongside Schumacher at Ferrari - that will raise howls of protest among the huge Schumacher fan club.

Their theory is that the seven-time champion’s reactions have suffered in his time away from the sport. They believe he’s finding it tougher to keep the balance of the car because he’s not able to react quickly enough.

Both sources have completed sports science studies which showed how a sportsman’s reflexes deteriorated from his late thirties onwards.

Schumacher’s enthusiasm, commitment, knowledge and determination remain as sharp as ever but the whole racing package is not at its previous peak.

Damon Hill told us before Silverstone that nobody should write off Michael Schumacher, given his past achievements.

But under current conditions, it’s hard to see him leading the way in the manner that he, and we, became accustomed to.

Now, it may be that Mercedes will produce a more competitive car for 2011 and Pirelli, which takes over from Bridgestone, will produce tyres that he can understand better.

If that’s the case, then what a prospect – Schumacher in the mix alongside Alonso, Hamilton, Vettel, Button, Webber and company.

On the other hand, it could be that F1 has seen the best of him – just like Lance Armstrong on his final Tour de France; seven times a winner but not once on his comeback.

All credit goes to the Source of this article.

This device allows you to see the location of all cars on the track during the race and we think it provides a neat complement to the rest of our coverage.

The best use of it is probably in addition to the TV output as a way to better understand the race – and the feedback we received after Silverstone was generally really positive, with many of you explaining how it had helped your appreciation of the action on the track.

It is particularly useful, for example, during the pit-stop period, when you can follow easily whether a driver has emerged from the pits ahead of or behind the rival he was racing before his stop – something that is not always picked up by the TV director.

As at Silverstone, the driver tracker – which is provided by Formula 1 Management (FOM) – will be added to our live video module on Sunday.

I know a few of you had difficulties finding it over the Silverstone weekend, and that there was some confusion about when it would be available. Sorry about that. In the interests of absolute clarity, this is what you need to know:

It is a video feed and it will appear in the live video module at the top of our live page covering the German Grand Prix. (This is the page that will be headlined “Live – German Grand Prix” and that is first published on the homepage of the BBC Sport site (www.bbc.co.uk/sport) and F1 (www.bbc.co.uk/f1) about 90 minutes before the start of the race.)

But of course the driver tracker only goes live when the cars are on the track, so it will be available only from the start of the race at 1300 BST.

It will be the first option after the main F1 video – which means you will need to click on the link that says “driver tracker”. This will be found in the carousel directly below the main video image. It will appear in the middle of the three options that are visible at the default setting – you can scroll to show the other options, which are the in-car camera channel, alternative commentary streams and rolling highlights.

And just to be clear, the tracker will not be available for practice and qualifying on Friday and Saturday.

A generic image of the F1 driver tracker – this one is taken from the Bahrain GP

For those of you not familiar with it, the driver-tracker option features a top-down circuit map, on which the drivers are identified by colour-coded shapes bearing their standard FOM three-letter abbreviation (ALO, for Fernando Alonso; HAM, for Lewis Hamilton; BUT for Jenson Button etc). These identifiers move around the track as the cars do, allowing viewers to track the progress of the drivers and the visual gaps between them.

As I say, the graphics, abbreviations and other features of the tracker are all developed by FOM themselves – but we’re really pleased we’ve been able to include it as part of our overall F1 package.

We hope you enjoy it – and please do let us know what you think.

All credit goes to the Source of this article.

That means we will broadcast the full ‘Grand Prix’ highlights programme of the time as well as the shorter edits we produce for the other races in the selection – which in this case were 1994, 1996, 1997 and 2009.

The full Grand Prix programme from 1986 is embedded below, with links to the other highlights choices underneath it.

WATCH SHORT HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 1986 GERMAN GRAND PRIX
WATCH SHORT HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 1994 GERMAN GRAND PRIX
WATCH SHORT HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 1996 GERMAN GRAND PRIX
WATCH SHORT HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 1997 GERMAN GRAND PRIX
WATCH SHORT HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2009 GERMAN GRAND PRIX
WATCH LONG HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2009 GERMAN GRAND PRIX

The classic races will be broadcast on the BBC red button on satellite and cable television in the UK from 1500 on Wednesday 21 July until 1130 BST on Friday 23 July.

On Freeview, they will be broadcast on Wednesday 21 July from 1915-2045 BST.

I’m sure some of you will point out that 1986 was not the most popular choice among respondents on this blog, but we have decided to choose that one because it is a much better race than the one that was backed by most of you – 1994. And, as I have always said, this is not a vote – we use your views to inform our choice.

As some respondents said on last week’s blog, the key moments of 1994 – the first-lap pile-ups, the Benetton pit fire, and Ferrari’s first win for four years – can easily be encapsulated in a 10-minute highlights edit. The rest of the race was a fairly humdrum procession, it has to be said.

The race-long, three-way, tactical battle between Williams driver Nelson Piquet and the McLarens of Keke Rosberg and Alain Prost in 1986, however, is a far better race, and gains more from a longer highlights treatment.

A number of you asked why we did not include Rubens Barrichello’s victory from 18th on the grid in 2000 or Lewis Hamilton’s recovery from McLaren’s strategic error in 2008. The answer is that these were among the choices last year.

Now, because Germany and Hungary are only a week apart this season, I also have to give you the choices for the Hungarian classic races edition – the videos for which will be published next week.

They are as follows:

1990 – Williams driver Thierry Boutsen withstood race-long pressure from a train of pursuers to take his final grand prix victory. McLaren’s Ayrton Senna recovered from a poor start that left him sixth to move up to second by barging Benetton’s Alessandro Nannini out of the way on lap 64 of 77. But the Brazilian did not employ the same tactics against Boutsen, a friend, and despite putting the Belgian under intense pressure had to settle for runners-up spot.

1992 – The day Nigel Mansell finally clinched the world title, and one of the few races that year not won by his all-conquering Williams team. The Englishman had utterly dominated the season and only had to finish second to clinch the title with five races still to go. He was overtaken by team-mate Riccardo Patrese at the start, also losing places to the McLarens of Senna and Gerhard Berger. He exchanged places with Berger a couple of times and then when Patrese spun off Mansell found himself in the second place he needed, and cruised to the finish.

1998 – One of the greatest drives of Michael Schumacher’s career. On a three-stop strategy with his rivals at McLaren – Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard – on two, Schumacher famously had to make up “25 seconds in 19 laps”, as he was told over the radio by technical director Ross Brawn, to win. He was helped by some major strategic errors by McLaren – who called in Hakkinen for a stop when the only way of preventing a Schumacher win by then would have been to stop Coulthard instead. But it was nevertheless a stunning drive by the German.

2007 – The race when Fernando Alonso’s relationship with McLaren finally broke down for good – although that all happened before the race. That turned out to be a tense, strategic battle between Alonso’s team-mate Lewis Hamilton and the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen, which Hamilton won despite intense late pressure from the Finn.

2009 – Another Hamilton win, and the climax of one of the greatest fightbacks by a team in F1 history. When McLaren’s 2009 car first appeared it was more than three seconds off the pace. But the team worked hard on developing it and by mid-summer on tracks with mainly slow corners – like Hungary – it was a competitive proposition. Hamilton, the reigning world champion, qualified fourth behind Alonso’s Renault and the two Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber and was up to second behind the Spaniard by lap five. He took the lead when Alonso made his pit stop on lap 11 and dominated the race thereafter.

Quite a choice, I hope you’ll agree, from an event that does not have the best of reputations for providing excitement. I look forward to reading your responses.

All credit goes to the Source of this article.

Eddie Jordan called it “poetic justice”. Mark Webber described it as “an appointment with karma”. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said it was “a great team result”. But whatever your view of Webber’s victory in the British Grand Prix, it is difficult to see how it will do anything other than store up a whole load more trouble for Red Bull Racing.

There have been a fair few angry racing drivers at various points during this brilliant Formula 1 season, but it is hard to recall one more upset than Webber was after qualifying on the day before his dominant win.

In the seeds of that emotion lay the result of the race – good for Webber and bad for team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who finished seventh after suffering a puncture caused trying to prevent the Australian passing him at the start.

As he sat in the news conference at Silverstone on Saturday afternoon, Webber, face like thunder, could barely even bring himself to look at Vettel, who had just beaten him to pole position.

Webber’s anger had been provoked by a team decision an hour or two earlier to take the only remaining new front wing off his car and give it to Vettel after the German’s similar wing had fallen off in final practice and been damaged beyond repair.

Red Bull responded angrily on Saturday afternoon to suggestions that the decision – which Horner said was his – was evidence of favouritism towards Vettel.

But neither I, nor any journalist I know, could find anyone in the paddock outside Red Bull who shared their view. Most were flabbergasted by it to the point of incredulity.

“They did what?” asked one veteran technical boss, when the story was relayed to him. Another simply described Red Bull’s actions as “ludicrous”, adding: “To take it off one car and put it on another – I’ve never heard of that. Unless you have a clear number one driver and a novice, in which case you’d give the number one both wings.”

Horner’s argument was that it was not Vettel’s fault that his wing failed in practice, that the incident left the team with only one, and he had to decide whom to give it to.

Webber’s stare speaks volumes as Vettel congratulates him on his win. Photo: AP

He claimed the advantage the wing gave was minimal – the common view from speaking to people at Red Bull was that it was worth about 0.1secs a lap – and he added that he made the decision on the basis that Vettel was ahead in the championship and had expressed slightly more preference for it on Friday.

Any suggestion that the decision was effectively saying Vettel was the de facto number one driver was batted back.

It is absolutely clear that Red Bull bosses do not understand why the rest of F1, and most of the media outside Germany, perceive this as favouritism towards Vettel. They think they are being even-handed.

“Mark knows how we operate as a team,” Horner said. “He knows there was no malice behind it or manipulation.”

But that is not the way it looks to most observers – and that has absolutely nothing to do with Webber’s popularity as a man in the paddock.

The wider view within F1 is simple:

You have two cars and two new front wings, which give a small advantage. One of the wings falls off one of the cars and cannot be used again. That’s bad luck for that driver.

If you are treating your drivers equally, that one reverts to the old wing and the other continues with the new one. Any intervention by the team to change that is altering the natural course of events and, by extension, manipulating them.

The problem for Red Bull in terms of public perception and – more importantly – the rising tensions within the team is that this comes six weeks after the controversy at the Turkish Grand Prix, when Webber and Vettel collided while disputing the lead.

The team’s immediate response to that – effectively blaming Webber for an incident that most thought Vettel was more responsible for – was perceived as being the final confirmation of what had been suspected for some time – that Vettel was Red Bull’s favoured driver.

Even without that, Horner’s decision on Saturday would have been regarded as favouritism. Add the two together, and it becomes even harder to see it any other way, regardless of whether the team mean it that way or not.

Of course it is Red Bull’s prerogative to treat their drivers in any way they see fit – but they can’t have it both ways. If they want Vettel to be their lead driver – and it would be understandable if they did – they can’t at the same time claim to be treating them both equally, and employing Webber on those terms.

One senior figure in F1 described Horner’s decision as “declaration of war” by Red Bull against Webber, adding: “It guarantees trouble at the first corner.”

His prescience was remarkable. Webber made a better start than Vettel, who squeezed his team-mate towards the pit wall before realising he had no choice but to give way.

With nowhere to go because Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren was coming up the inside too, Vettel tried to sit it out with Webber around the outside of Copse, the 170mph first corner, which was never going to end in his favour. And he got a puncture after a touch with Hamilton, ruining his race.

So yet again Red Bull have failed to capitalise fully when they had the fastest car, the two drivers have swapped positions in the championship, but remain third and fourth, and McLaren drivers Hamilton and Jenson Button have consolidated their advantage.

In Hamilton, Red Bull face a rival who is absolutely at the top of his game and on Sunday brilliantly salvaged a second place from a race that, on Friday evening, looked like turning into a disaster for McLaren. It was a stupendous performance by the 2008 world champion – and Button’s in finishing fourth from 14th on the grid was very nearly as good.

Meanwhile, not only are Red Bull not realising their potential, but they are letting their rivals score more than they should, and they will not have the car advantage they had at Silverstone at all the remaining races.

On top of that, these rows are driving a wedge inside the team.

“Not bad for a number two driver,” Webber said on the radio on the slowing down lap. “You can smile now,” Horner responded.

And Vettel made thinly veiled remarks that seem to have been aimed at Webber: “Sometimes good and bad you get to know people a little better and see their true faces. So I think I have learned my lesson and focus on myself.”

Horner said after the race that having “two such competitive drivers” was a “very good problem to have”. That may be how he sees it. But from the outside it looks like it might end up costing Red Bull a championship that has always been theirs to lose.

All credit goes to the Source of this article.

This weekend’s British Grand Prix promises to be a defining race in the Formula 1 season.

Not only does it mark the passing of the halfway point – it is the 10th of 19 races in 2010 – but it will also give an insight into whether the attempts by Red Bull’s rivals to close the gap to the pace-setting RB6 on raw performance have been in any way successful.

McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button may lead the championship heading into this race, but on paper Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber – third and fourth – could expect to make up some serious ground on their rivals here, a race they dominated last season and might be expected to do so again this weekend.

But will they?

Alonso, Webber, Hamilton and Button all retain hopes of winning the 2010 drivers’ championship

Red Bull may have struggled for various reasons in the first half of the season to translate the pace of their car into hard results but Silverstone in theory should be a gift for them.

The Red Bull car is renowned for being in a class of its own in long, medium- and high-speed corners – the sort that abound here.

Silverstone shares that characteristic with the Circuit de Catalunya, home of the Spanish Grand Prix, a race Webber dominated in May.

The Australian and his German team-mate were the best part of a second a lap faster than anything else in qualifying in Barcelona. And Webber shot off into a race of his own there, even though Vettel never managed to get away from the pursuing Hamilton and Fernando Alonso of Ferrari.

Usually, the comparative performances of cars are pretty similar in Barcelona and Silverstone. But McLaren and Ferrari have been working hard on adding efficient downforce to their cars and Silverstone will be a litmus test of how well they have done.

One of the biggest changes to many of the cars in the last couple of races is the so-called ‘blown diffuser’ – a feature that has been on the Red Bull since the start of the year but which is only just starting to be adopted by their rivals. Ferrari, Renault and Mercedes adopted it in Valencia, with mixed results, and McLaren and Williams have it here.

This device directs the exhaust gases low down through the ‘coke-bottle’ shape at the rear of the car, reducing air turbulence and thereby increasing downforce.

Ferrari believe they were at least as quick as the Red Bull in the race in Valencia – they just did not get the chance to prove it following Alonso’s controversial delay behind the safety car.

Valencia, all slow corners and long straights, is a very different track from Silverstone. But in theory, the improvements in performance should work at every track.

Ferrari say they expect to see “some benefit” from the changes this weekend, but say their simulations do not give them a clear understanding of how the car will perform at Silverstone. The fact that the track has been changed since last year, with the new section added after Abbey, is making the picture even more opaque.

Alonso said: “We don’t know [where we will be]. We need to wait and see.

“Obviously in Barcelona we were quite a lot off the pace, nearly one second. We expect a better performance here. But the Red Bulls are clearly the favourites at the moment before free practice.

“Hopefully, we can change this feeling when we go in the car and hopefully we will see good grip and performance in our car as well.

“But we have no clear idea or clear simulation. We just need to work hard to set up the car right for this new circuit, knowing well also the circuit tomorrow, doing more laps than normal, hopefully arriving at Saturday with a good car.”

McLaren say they are similarly in the dark about their potential.

“We genuinely don’t know [what difference the changes will make to the car],” a McLaren insider said. “And the reason we’re saying that is because we really don’t know.”

The changes to the track have had a qualified thumbs up from the drivers, with Jenson Button saying that the new section “takes away the flow a bit – but I think it will add to the track. It’s always been a tough circuit to overtake on, and with a couple of (the new) slow corners, it might change that. And the downforce level could be different, as well.”

It might be unrealistic, then, to expect anything other than a Red Bull on pole after Saturday afternoon.

The Red Bulls have a performance advantage in qualifying that does not necessarily translate into the race.

And although the adoption of the blown diffuser should bring the McLarens and Ferraris towards them, it is not going to close the gap on its own.

As one leading engineer told me: “The blown diffuser is a few percent improvement, not 10-15%.”

Another said he thought the Red Bulls would be “very strong”.

In other words, don’t expect the Red Bull’s advantage to have disappeared overnight. And there is also the issue of how big a step forward the developments Red Bull are bringing to Silverstone will provide.

That is not to say, though, that Red Bull will necessarily disappear in the race even if they dominate on Saturday – they may have been on pole for eight of the nine races so far, but they have only won four of them.

And time and again this year a massive advantage in qualifying for the Red Bull has been dramatically reduced come Sunday afternoon.

Of more pressing concern for the drivers ahead of Friday’s free practice sessions is the design of some of the kerbs at five corners around the track.

High kerbs have been placed behind the main kerbs at Maggotts/Becketts, Vale, Club and Village and The Loop in the new section, the purpose being to deter the drivers from running off the race track. Most of these are slow-ish corners – but Maggotts, the 180mph entry into the daunting Becketts swerves, and the right-hander after it are most definitely not.

The drivers believe these high kerbs add an unnecessary danger, that they have the potential to launch a car that runs wide into the air.

As Webber – who knows all about airborne accidents – explains: “In Becketts there are a few larger sections behind the main kerbing which the drivers aren’t a fan of.

“We don’t feel its necessary in high-speed corners to have that kind of kerbing, because the main aim of that kerbing is to keep us inside the circuit, like at the chicanes in Monza, Canada, Nurburgring and so on.

“So to have them in fifth and sixth gear corners that isn’t particularly necessary.

“In the past here we have seen people aquaplaning across Maggotts and Becketts out of control. I think (Juan Pablo) Montoya had a pretty decent suspension failure across there.

“So it’s best the cars go across a smooth-ish surface within reason, and we don’t need to add any large bumps that potentially could project a car upwards, which could lead to a head-height (collision) with a driver at the apex (of the next corner). Slow-speed corners are fine but we feel it’s unnecessary at high-speed corners.”

Webber said he hoped something would be done about these kerbs overnight. I understand, though, that as of Thursday evening the drivers had not approached race director Charlie Whiting about it, and that there were no plans for changes before practice started.

All in all, then, there is a lot to keep an eye on over the next few days.

All credit goes to the Source of this article.