The worlds most penalised F1 driver, the man who was disqualified from the 1997 World Championship, and self-styled most odious tosser in the history of motorsport, Michael ComebackerSCHUMACHER, MICHAEL
Michael expresses his remorse at having dangerously forced a rival off the track. Again. When he wasn't driving people off the road, ramming other cars, parking in the middle of the track or trying to punch David Coulthard, Michael Schumacher displayed a dazzling talent for finding new ways to disadvatage his team-mate. We're being slightly churlish, of course, but Schumacher's reputation as a driver will forever be coloured by the unsporting manner in which he raced. His first break in F1 came with Jordan at Spa in 1991 and his second with Ferrari at Silverstone in 1999, when he fractured a leg crashing at Stowe. His final F1 drive through the field at Interlagos was a reminder of what his legacy could have been if he hadn't been quite so ready to tarnish it quite so frequently. The wanker. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper is gradually losing his vice-like grip on the Guinness-and-a-cream-egg-and-a-run-around-the-building Book of World F1 Records™.
There is a bewildering array of records in Formula 1, which anyone who has ever visited our F1 records page and been frustrated by how shockingly out of date it is will appreciate. And they will probably be equally frustrated that about half the time, those records are held by Michael Comebacker. Yes, about half, I'd say.
dotdotdotcomma's dedicated team of researchers are in the process of updating all the records, and even adding some new ones, the deity of your choice help them, and in doing so, they have reliably informed us, they have today discovered that another Comebacker record has finally bitten the dust.
This time around it is the turn of "Points: most for vice champion", a record that the pointy-chinned German has held since 2006 when he managed to amass a colossal 121 points on the way to losing the championship to Fernando AlonsulkALONSO, FERNANDO
Fernando always keeps abreast of the latest technical developments. Alonso's full name is Fernando Alonso Diaz and few people realise that he is the half-brother of Cameron Diaz, the well-known jizz-haired actress. His success in Formula One has led to a huge growth of interest in the sport in his home country of Spain, where not so long ago you could easily pick up cheap tickets to the Grand Prix and pretty much have your pick of seats, so thanks for that, Fernando. Like many of the sport's stars, Alonso began his F1 career with Minardi and he made a splash at his first race, where he out-qualified his team-mate by over two and a half seconds. That margin is rendered slightly less impressive when you learn that his team-mate was Tarso Marques who, as racing drivers go, has a lovely personality. Fernando was soon snapped up by Renault, where he spent a year testing before being promoted to a race seat. He became the then youngest world champion in 2005 and the youngest double champion in 2006. There followed an abbreviated tenure at McLaren which failed to yield a third title, largely because he proved unable to beat a rookie, after which he was welcomed back to the Renault team, where he is expected to wait grumpily until a Ferrari seat becomes available. Alonso is an exceptionally talented and complete racing driver but he also has a reckless - often self-destructive - streak and an eccentrically unique take on what it means to be a team-player, traits which have doubtless closed a number of F1 doors to him. In 2005 he was appointed one of UNICEF's Goodwill Ambassadors, which may explain why he never has any left for anyone else. TIGRA 16v: The tooltip with lowered suspension and a racing windscreen wiper (who scored 134).
We are pleased to announce that this record has effectively been broken, with nine more races still to go, and that not only has the potential runner-up broken the record, but so has the third-placed man, and the fourth has equalled it.
Now the more cynical among you - and we know you're out there because, well, you're exactly the demographic these hallowed pages are aimed at - are bound to point out that what with the points system being changed from 10 for a win to 25, it was inevitable that this record would be broken this year, and that this is further exacerbated by the fact that there are more races now than there were in 2006. And to this we would say, well, yes you've got a point.
"Well, yes," we would say, "you've got a point."
On the other hand, it could be argued that points systems do change and you're just going to have to live with it Mr Comebacker, and we really can't be bothered to do the math, as the yanks say, to see whether anyone would beat the record if you used a different system.
Anyway, it is still mathematically possible that Comebacker will finish second in this year's championship and beat his own record himself, although, to be honest, this is extremely unlikely on account of the fact that this year he is basically crap.
STOP PRESS: "Points: most in a season" has been claimed by Lewis Hamilton too.
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