Ralf Schumacher Quotes

Running on different types of racetracks is challenging - not only for the drivers, but even more for the team members who have to make adjustments to the cars before each race.

People say that F1 is blessed with the 'best drivers in the world,' but I want to witness the 'total best drivers in the world,' and this means taking away the elements that make their job easier.

Winning the championship is more than 50% driver. It's probably 60% driver, 40% car. I don't really know where luck fits in there - over the course of a season, everybody catches their breaks.

A good driver can make up for bad equipment way more than a good car could make up for a bad driver.

If I test the car for a year I can be quite competitive the next season.

I think as a 20-year-old you expect life to always be easy. You get given a good hand and the chance to race in Formula One. You think the driver can make the difference, can make up for everything else within the team. But that is not the case. You are racing in such a competitive sport so that doesn't happen.

I was already on pole, then by half a second and then one second and I just kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car.

You tend to think that there is a big gap between F1 and everything else. F1 is where all the fantastic drivers are, so you just don't know how good you are until you get there.

We all drive differently and have different styles. For me I need a car I can develop beneath me and feel comfortable in. If the car feels neutral and unbalanced it doesn't work for me.

No matter how good a driver you are, you have to have the right car and the right team behind you in order to succeed.

I need to develop a car and engineer a car in a position that feels comfortable for me, and I don't think anyone can do a better job than I can in that position. The problem for me is if I can't get the car there I do struggle more than some.

Every track has its challenges, but Suzuka is a continuous test of a driver's skills, and I think that's what makes it so beautiful to drive.

No matter how good you are, how brave you are or anything, it comes down to that car so many times. Not every time, but so many times.

The first race is really just something that we will all need to get through. Until people see the cars in action I don't think they will understand how quick they will be, which means they are going to be tiring to drive.

I was a driver and a racer. The difference between drivers, who can be great World Champions, and racers, who are also World Champions, is that racers don't wait for things to happen: they make things happen.

The HMI (human-machine interface) function inside a Ferrari is probably the weakest link in the chain of technical know-how that's embodied in the car.

We have moved away from basic racing, where you see how the drivers fight with the cars to their physical limits and then make mistakes - or not.

It's probably 10% luck and 45-45 on the driver and the car. If you have a bad car, you're done.

I think Formula One is - there's a lot of differences from track to track, grip levels, tyre compound, so you always have to press the reset button and work from scratch again.

I think Formula One is extremely difficult, obviously, and it's the best drivers in the world so it's not easy to jump in and be on your top level immediately.

When I'm doing longer runs I can be very consistent on the lap times because I know what the car is doing all the time.

I'm very into my cars. I always ready the Top Gear magazines just to see what cars are out next and what sort of performance they give. It can range from the smallest cars to the biggest ones.

You've got to distribute the tyre life over the stint, I think that's the main limiting factor, more than car balance.

I like to drive hard, and obviously when you get to this level, especially running for points - you've got to make sure when you have a car that can run 10th, that you run 10th with it. You can't sit here and try to make it go from 10th to a win and end up 30th. That's just something I had to figure out.

These days it is not very easy to overtake in Formula One, the cars have great aerodynamic downforce. When you are behind a car, you lose downforce.