Two of motorsport's greatest legends, Michael Schumacher and Valentino Rossi, have come under the microscope during the summer.
Both are multiple champions widely regarded as the modern-day greats of their sports. The Italian may have a way to go to catch the winning tally of the great Giacomo Agostini, whereas the German surpassed Juan Manuel Fangio long ago, but in many ways they are very similar despite a 10-year age gap (41 to 31).
In their heyday they were their respective sports' yardsticks. Each has survived with only a broken leg apiece to show for their derring-do, though where Rossi came back within six weeks, Schumacher angered the Ferrari chief Luca di Montezemolo by playing football long before he reluctantly declared himself fit to return to the cockpit in support of his team-mate Eddie Irvine's World Championship campaign.
Therein lies one of their crucial differences. Rossi might not have been all that enamoured to have Jorge Lorenzo as his team-mate, especially this year, but there has never been a stage where he has insisted, as Schumacher always has, that his team-mate should be a stooge, there purely to help his own quest for greatness.
And, as we were so forcibly reminded at the last race in Hungary, Schumacher is prepared to do things on the track that Rossi, a gentleman at all times, would never remotely countenance. The German was panned by his critics after pushing his former Ferrari team-mate Rubens Barrichello within an inch of a major accident at almost 190mph.
Sir Jackie Stewart, the cleanest of the clean, said: "It was one of the most blatant abuses of another driver that I have seen. It is a terrible example from a man who has seven world titles – bully-boy tactics." Fellow triple champion Niki Lauda said: "To endanger another competitor in such a way is totally unnecessary. I cannot understand why he does those things."
drive from www.independent.co.uk