shumy - tribute (3)

The history

Frank Williams said that he and all the other team owners were kicking themselves in Spa that they hadn’t spotted Schumacher’s potential sooner. Ross Brawn, then at Benetton, certainly had, racing against him in sportscars, Ross with Jaguar, Michael with Sauber-Mercedes. Mercedes were not in F1 in 1991 and by the time they arrived Schumacher was lost to them.

They had several big efforts at getting him, but failed each time.So it was Flavio Briatore, from 1991-95 and then Jean Todt who had the principal benefit of running Schumacher in their car and he repaid both of them in spades.

Statistically at least, he is the greatest driver in history.

He has re-written the history books and raised the bar in terms of what is expected of a Grand Prix driver.
Now they have to have immense commitment, their fitness must be scientifically monitored and their preparation for each race has to be perfect.

As a child racing karts Schuey developed the mentality that you get out of racing what you put in. Rarely has any sport seen a harder worker. At Benetton he learned the F1 ropes, guided by the experienced hands of Brawn and particularly Pat Symonds, who was his race engineer back then.

He also learned how to play the political game, making sure that the team was firmly lined up behind him and that his number two driver stayed just that.

By the time he arrived at Ferrari in 1996 he was the real deal. The car that year was a dog, but he still won three races with it including an emotional win at Monza, where tens of thousands of tifosi opened a giant Ferrari flag under the podium.

Martin Brundle interviewed him a lot in those days and hell recall his eye-popping awe at the scale of the reception and the passion he had felt from the crowd that day.At Ferrari he built around him a super team of engineers and managers, ruled by a ‘circle of fear’, in which the key players were motivated as much by a desire not to let the others down as by the thirst for victory.

Ferrari had not won a title for going on 20 years, but Schumacher gave them five in succession from 2000-2004. Brundle recall vividly the win at Budapest in 1998, where Schumacher was asked by Brawn to find something like 19s in 17 laps over Hakkinen as he switched him on to a bold three stop plan and he did it, winning the race.



The McLaren on the Bridgestones was a superior car to the Ferrari on Goodyears that year, but Schuey took some unlikely victories to keep himself in the title chase. If you look at how much it took out of driver like Hill or Hakkinen, how they aged before your eyes and then you look at Michael who has changed remarkably little.
I think that the accident at Silverstone in 1999 did him a favour in that respect.

It gave him an unexpected three months off at a very busy time and he was able to take stock of where he was, recharge his batteries and refocus. He came back at a higher level and that propelled him to the five titles in a row from 2000-4.

I honestly don’t believe he would have kept going for so long if he had not had that break in 1999.