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Michael Schumacher: The Edge Of GreatnessBy James Allen; published by Headline.It's strange to think that just 12 months ago, we were dreading the void in F1 that Michael Schumacher would supposedly leave when he retires. Looking at it now, it seems almost scary that a seven-time world champion can disappear and his absence pass almost unnoticed.
That said, nobody imagined that the first season of the post-Michael era would be anywhere near as eventful as 2007 has been. With most people's attention having been diverted towards record-breaking rookies, intra-team fighting and spy scandals, the expected wave of books to mark Schumacher's retirement has not eventuated. Just one has made its way to autosport.com's gleaming headquarters - but happily, it's a rather good one.
James Allen is better known to most F1 fans as a voice on the TV than as an author, although he did have the distinction of putting his name to what was, at the time, probably the best book anyone had written about Michael Schumacher - 1999's
Quest for Redemption.
On that occasion, Allen used the events of Jerez 1997 as a starting point to explore the contrast between Schumacher's talent and his judgement. It was not an easy task, particularly given the way that Michael tended to polarise people back then, but one that put the German and his career into perspective better than any of the other millions of words that have been written about him were able to.
The Edge of Greatness runs to a similar theme, only now Allen has the advantage of being able to examine Schumacher's career in its entirety rather than as a work in progress.
Like last time, he starts with a moment that darkened Schumacher's reputation - in this case, qualifying at Monaco in 2006 - and from there attempts to build an understanding of what drove a man of such ability to overstep the mark so dramatically.
It is unerringly fair in its assessment - Allen makes full use of his connections within the paddock to draw upon a wide range of opinions, and those who fought in Schumacher's corner are given equal weight to those who fought against him. David Coulthard and Mark Webber in particular are astonishingly candid in sharing their thoughts regarding Schumacher's methods, whether they be on the track, in the drivers' briefing room, or in private.
One of the more striking remarks, however, comes from Michael himself. Often dismissed as cold or robotic for his insistence upon keeping his emotions in check, Schumacher explained himself thus:
"Mika [Hakkinen] showed some humanity [at Monza in 1999, when cameras caught him crying after he spun and retired while leading], and what did the journalists do? They screwed him for it.
"So what should you do? Well, you should try to keep a balance and that way you don't show everything you are feeling to the outside world, because if you do it's used against you in a bad way.
"So you do a professional job and that sometimes means you're not really doing what is human, what is natural. You protect yourself, and all of us are doing that, I think, to some degree." (p. 148).
Allen told me recently that he thinks this book is better than the last one, and while it's exactly what you'd expect an author to say about their latest work, I'm inclined to agree with him.
Being neither a hatchet job nor a hagiography, it has the capacity to appeal regardless of whether you own a Ferrari cap or not, and depth of research and quality of Allen's analysis has allowed him to come close to answering the many unresolved questions about one of the most intriguing figures to have appeared in any sport over the last 30 years.
By Mark Glendenningautosport.com contributing writerСергей Беднарук39436,2347916667
