Steve Slater on Formula One: Schumacher’s greatest battle

It seems the saddest of ironies that, after a motor racing career spanning over 300 Grand Prix, that the legendary Michael Schumacher is now fighting for his life after a ski accident during what should have been an idyllic family Christmas break.

Schumacher’s head injuries came after falling and hitting a rock while skiing with his fourteen year-old son Mick, close to the family villa at Meribel in the French Alps. While Schumacher has always zealously guarded his family’s privacy, father and son are a very close pairing. For the past two years Michael has toured small European tracks, supporting Mick as he has raced in the Italian national and European karting championships.

These were the self-same tracks upon which Michael first raced thirty years ago before moving to Formula König and Formula Three single-seaters, where he won both championships while progressing to his Formula One debut in 1991. There is no denying that Schumacher’s ferociously competitive approach won him critics as well as admirers, but love or hate him, Schumacher is the standard by which every other Formula One driver is, and forever will be, measured.

Schumacher scored an unmatched 91 Grand Prix wins, 40 more than nearest rival Alain Prost and well ahead of Sebastian Vettel’s total of 39. Michael also of course, holds the record for the most world championship titles with seven, plus the most pole positions (68) and fastest laps in races (77). Even in 2013, his most crushingly successful year ever, Sebastian Vettel only managed to equal, not surpass, Schumacher’s 2004 record of 13 wins in a single season.

I first met Michael back in 1990 when I was commentating on the German F3 championship. However, Schumacher wasn’t alone. At that time there were three, almost equally-matched young German hot-shots all destined for Formula One. Schumacher was in fact beaten to his first bid for the F3 title by Austrian Karl Wendlinger, while joining Schumacher in the series top three was Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

In 1991, Mercedes-Benz signed Schumacher, Wendlinger, and another talented young German, Fritz Kreutzpointner, to race as a ‘junior team’ in the car maker’s World Sportscar Championship program. That was when the fun really started.

At Le Mans, despite as well as an attempt by Mercedes’ team manager Peter Sauber to impose some team discipline, all three drivers began vying to set the fastest lap. It, inevitably, was achieved by Schumacher. He took advantage of the cooler, denser night-time air to set the record at a 222.515 kph average, in pitch darkness at around two in the morning! Unsurprisingly, the Mercedes Benz C.11 wilted under the pressure and retired, handing victory to Johnny Herbert’s race-winning Mazda and the Ross Brawn-designed Jaguars.

In a twist of irony, one of Schumacher’s team mates that weekend has also fought, and won, a similar battle with head injuries. In 1994 Karl Wendlinger was racing for the Sauber Mercedes team when he crashed heavily in practice for the Monaco Grand Prix, receiving very similar injuries to those sustained by Schumacher.

Wendlinger remained in a coma for several weeks, but recovered sufficiently to return to Formula One briefly in 1995, before switching to sports car racing. He continues to race GT3  sports cars for Mercedes today.

When Schumacher’s Formula One career finally ended in 2012, it was clear that he was never going to be happy sitting beside the fire in an armchair. Schumacher’s wish for continued action is supported by a fortune amassed in the sport, estimated at over GBP 515 million, which allows him to do anything he pleases.

In 2007 and 2008, during his ‘first retirement’ after leaving Ferrari, Schumacher raced Ducati motorcycles in the German national championship. More recently he has shared his wife Corrina’s love for horse riding and show jumping, and is apparently no mean horseman. He is also an enthusiastic sky diver, a sport also enjoyed by his 16 year-old daughter Gina-Maria.

Some might regard this indulging in high-risk activities as a substitute for the adrenalin rush of Formula One. While that may be partially be true, it should not be seen as being foolhardy. Another retired Formula One driver, David Coulthard, perfectly summed up Schumacher’s philosophy.

Speaking to the BBC, Coulthard pointed out that Formula One drivers, rather than being mere dare-devils, Formula One drivers are in fact very astute managers of risk. While they are keen to play to the edge of that barrier, their racing experience makes it very rare that they go beyond it.

With the exception of Robert Kubica, seriously injured in a freak rallying accident in 2011 and Mark Webber, who was struck by a vehicle during a cycle race in 2009, no other Formula One driver of recent time has been killed or seriously injured in another sport. The last fatality was former Ferrari driver Didier Pironi, whose motor racing career was cut short by leg injuries in 1982. He took up offshore powerboat racing and was killed in an accident in the English Channel in 1986.

Coulthard meanwhile believes that Schumacher’s fitness, allied to prompt medical care on the ski slopes, should aid his chances of recovery. “He was very quickly taken to the best hospitals available and physically he’s in exceptional shape. All the cards are stacked in his favor.”

So far at least, there are cautious signs that Coulthard’s prognosis is proving correct, but certainly at best Schumacher faces a long and difficult recovery from his critical injuries. Here’s hoping that 2014 will prove a happy New Year for Schumacher, his family, friends and fans.