The world’s press has rounded on Michael Schumacher after the German squandered a chance to further close the gap to Fernando Alonso last Sunday in Hungary.

‘Michael wastes his opportunity’, Italy’s Tuttosport said earlier this week, and the major German newspaper Bild is now pedalling a similar line.

Ferrari’s Schumacher looked destined to close the championship gap to just 3 points following the mechanical problem of Alonso in Budapest, but the 37-year-old also had to retire after colliding with Nick Heidfeld.

Earlier, he copped a qualifying penalty after overtaking under red flags during practice.

The daily Bild published a headline on Wednesday which read: ‘Schumi drives without a brain’.

Schumacher’s countryman Hans-Joachim Stuck, a former F1 racer, appears in the Swiss newspaper BZ as deriding the German’s actions, as did the South-German Suddeutsche Zeitung daily.

Pedro de la Rosa revealed that Schumacher also clashed wheels with him last Sunday, inspiring Niki Lauda to comment: “It was not his cleverest race. I am not sure that Alonso would have behaved like that.”

Former Swiss F1 driver Marc Surer, an analyst for Germany’s Premiere TV, accused Schumacher of driving ‘like a go-kart driver’.

His brother, Ralf, told Bild: “Michael knows that it was not a brilliant race for him, but I don’t think it is fair to accuse him of driving without a brain.”

Even Ferrari boss Jean Todt, though, suggested that Schumacher’s aggressive finish to the Hungarian grand prix was an overly big risk.

“Perhaps we should have said something to him on the radio,” he said.

[GMM]

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