Poor old Ralf Schumacher. When it comes to sibling rivalry he gets the rough end of the stick. I'm sure there are things he does better than his big brother, but motor racing isn't one of them. One can only imagine the mental toughness needed to cope with watching Michael winning all those championships while you don't.
At last this year there is no Schumacher senior on the grid (normally several places in front too). You would have thought that this would have been Ralf's chance to shine. But instead of it being 'the moment', this season is turning into a stinker for the German. There are rumours that he may not last the whole year at Toyota. Considering the form of Toyota, things must be bad.
It's not that Ralf has been a bad driver. In a career that has spanned 10 years and the best part of 170 races, he's won six times and chalked up six pole positions. But his best season was some years back and currently he couldn't drive his way out of a paper bag.
At Monaco he was so far off the pace (two laps behind the leader) that Toyota's top brass were mystified. There's been a lot of talk in the team of improving Ralf's confidence, something that surely shouldn't even be a consideration in someone so experienced. Toyota's vice-chairman has vented his frustration, saying he can't make Ralf go faster. Tadashi Yamashina was quoted as saying 'the combination of our driver's mindset and spirit, and the set-up of our car, has not combined been well'.
Not the best thing to hear from your boss when your contract is up for renewal. Indeed, so great is the crisis at Toyota that there are persistent reports that Ralf will be replaced midway through the season with the Spyker driver Adrian Sutil.
So why the tailspin in form?
There are those who would suggest he's never been the real deal. Critics point out his over-aggressive driving won him the nickname 'shuntmaker'. His temperament has also been the subject of scrutiny. At Williams, his battle with teammate Juan Pablo Montoya seemed to be counterproductive to results.