Schumacher to 'quickly surpass' Mansell's age

Gingerous has written in with some interesting comments on a recent BBC Sport article called 'Michael Schumacher targets F1 title with Mercedes team'. Here's the particular par he refers to:

Schumacher is the oldest driver to compete in F1 since Nigel Mansell made a brief comeback in 1994, also at the age of 41 - and the German will quickly surpass the Englishman's age as the year progresses.


And here's what Gingerous has to say:

Two things popped into my head when I read this - firstly, can you quickly surpass an age? Surely we all age at the same rate.

Secondly, technically he won't surpass Nigel Mansell's age since at the time of writing this Nigel Mansell is still alive and with us and currently 56.

Obviously this is just me being pedantic and the article does make sense.


As everyone ages at the same rate, I agree that the word 'quickly' is a bit of a strange choice. Perhaps the writer means 'soon'? And 'as the year progresses' also sounds odd to me. Perhaps it would be better to tell us exactly when Schumacher will become the oldest driver ever to compete in F1.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

How about 'quickly' as in lively, with life or vigour? I suppose you can't surpass an age if you're dead!

No? Okay, it was probably meant in its more common sense, as in "to quickly split an infinitive".