I’ve seen this clip a few times before, and I still believe that Mika Hakkinen is to blame because he pulled out too late to overtake Schumacher. I can’t see how he was going to make the overtake work.
This is one view of the Macau incident as described by Ville Kopu of Finland:
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During the final laps through the heat Schumacher made a mistake and Hakkinen was right on his gearbox coming on to the main straight. With both men going at around 200 km/h, Hakkinen attempted a pass. Apparently, that did not fit in with Schumacher's plans, and he blocked Hakkinen on the straight. The two cars made contact, and Hakkinen lost a front wing, spinning into the barrier. Schumacher cruised into a victory without a rear wing.
This Macau incident was not a championship decider. But looking back retrospectively, the pattern of Schumacher's behaviour when under great pressure can be traced back all the way to Macau 1990, including the inevitable interviews after the race, where Schumacher is quick to blame his rival for the incident. In Macau, he said that Hakkinen was simply crazy to not just follow him conveniently to the checkered flag, and win on aggregated times...
It seems very peculiar to me that Mika Hakkinen gained more speed through slipstream than he expected.
Lincoln Chan offers the following explanation in his article about the history of the Macau GP:
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However, on the last corner of the last lap, Schumacher deliberately exposed an opening for Hakkinen to pass. But when Hakkinen drove through it to take the lead, Schumacher slammed his car into the Flying Finn and knocked him out of the race. Hakkinen was forced to retire right in front of the finish line.
Mika Hakkinen himself said:
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All I need to do was finish second behind Michael. That was my plan, and it was easy. Then Michael made a mistake coming out of the corner onto the straight and I had no problem passing him. He moved over on my before the braking area and we touched. Afterwards he said he was very sorry because he hadn't seen me in his mirrors. I accept that and it was over. A few days later, I saw an interview with Michael on Eurosport after the race. He said in the interview that when he saw me in his mirrors, he changed his line to block me....I will always remember that
This coincides with my impression that Schumacher seems to become slightly slower towards the end of the straight, the incident Hakkinen moves over.
As a result, it seems to me that Michael Schumacher moved inwards to block Hakkinen in the braking zone (the end of the straight), leaving the Finn no choice but to smash into his rear.
:shock:
Of course you would go for the gap, but then you wouldn’t be sticking to the plan. He chose to go against the plan and lost out.
That's true, but would you have really braked if you had the chance, not knowing that Michael is the kind of person that would not let you pass? If Michael had a loose wheel nut and was running half the usual speed, would you stay behind him and watch the rest of the field pass? You're right, he saw a chance that he really didn't need to make use of, but in the end he did. The question is who was to blame for the collision itself :?
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Schumacher doesn't make mistakes
Well he personally admits he's made mistakes, and there's not enough space to list them, but let me take the most recent one: I'm assuming the Monaco incident was because of the tyres, right?
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