Not many experts and pundits comment on the success of the countries involved in Formula 1. It’s mainly about the individual or constructor. Stating what country they’re from, doesn’t really click in people’s heads and makes them think, ‘This country has loads of drivers in F1 and good ones as well.’

But when you think about it, you would probably think of countries like Great Britain, Finland, Brazil and Spain is slowly joining them as well. But one country that seems to be way out in front at the moment is Germany. With names like Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Ralf Schumacher, Nick Heidfeld, you can see that this new generation has good drivers to look up to. You could even mention Markus Winkelhock who became the first Formula 1 driver to start last and lead a race, and he achieved it on the opening lap and to do it in a Spyker is an even bigger achievement. If you have never seen this feat accomplished, check the internet for a video clip.

So far this season, this new generation have shown the potential that people have been saying about them. But the big question is, can the returning Michael Schumacher, the most successful driver in our sport, keep up with them?

Beating Michael Schumacher whether he was your teammate or not was an almost impossible task to accomplish. Even if you did pass him, Schumacher knew where to overtake you on the next straight or corner. The best guy to talk to about never beating him was Rubens Barrichello. Former Ferrari team-mate in the era of Schumacher dominance, the era of when you saw Schumacher crash or retire, it was going to be a good race whatever the outcome, because Schumi didn’t feature e.g. Brazil 2003.

Barrichello always seemed to get the retirements, bad pit stops, bad timing to bring out safety cars. One incident that says it all is the 2002 Austrian GP, one of the few circuits that Schumacher had never won on. Team orders stopped Rubens from winning as he was told to let Michael through on the final lap and on the final straight after the Brazilian had been leading in qualifying and the whole race. One of the most disgusting moments I’ve seen in my 12 seasons of watching this sport.

But now the tables have turned as current team mate Nico Rosberg seems to not even be concentrating on beating Schumacher but challenging for the title, that’s how far behind Schumacher is. He has out qualified and out raced Schumacher with regular occurrence season. Beating Schumacher doesn’t seem to be an impressive feat, but I’d still give Schumi time to master this new generation of Formula 1 cars. Nico is still an impressive driver nonetheless, but he is still being beaten by the other three teams. If he can at least challenge these teams on race pace, then I think people would consider him as champion. However, over this season will he still manage to carry on beating Schumacher throughout the majority of the nineteen races?

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