Michael Schumacher's dirtiest tricks: F1 drives that disgraced a champion

F1

One of the greatest drivers ever seen on the Formula 1 stage, Michael Schumacher refused to contemplate defeat: an attitude that brought him audacious results, but led him to shameful tactics. Matt Bishop picks the five lowest moments

Michael Schumacher drives into the side of Jacques Villeneuve Williams at 1997 F1 European Grand Prix in Jerez

Schumacher only succeeded in self-sabotage at Jerez, '97

THILL/ATP/DPPI

Can it really be 30 years since Michael Schumacher perpetrated his first high-profile professional foul in Formula 1? Yes, it can be and it is, to the very day, because he did it on November 13, 1994, in Adelaide, which is 10-and-a-half hours ahead of London, which means that, although this column is being published by London-based Motor Sport at around lunchtime on November 12, it is already as near as dammit November 13 Down Under.

Schumacher was, is, and will always be one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time. Prodigiously ambitious, freakishly quick almost everywhere but especially in the wet, and a truly brilliant motivator of mechanics and engineers, he assembled an F1 magnum opus that, until Lewis Hamilton came along, most of us thought would never be matched, let alone beaten. His stats are mesmerisingly good: 91 F1 grand prix wins, 155 F1 grand prix podiums, 68 F1 grand prix pole positions, 77 F1 grand prix fastest laps, and seven F1 drivers’ world championships. But if he had a fault, it was born of that prodigious ambition. He not only loved to win but also refused to countenance defeat, and that bloody-mindedness occasionally caused him to commit on-track atrocities that were unworthy of his sublime talent. I wish it were not the case, but it is. In their heart of hearts, even his most ardent fans have to admit it.

So this column will list, rank, and describe what I regard as his five most egregious offences, in ascending order of heinousness. There have been others, I am sad to say, but I have selected what I believe were his five worst.

5. Adelaide 1994

I will start with the professional foul whose anniversary we are ‘celebrating’. When the F1 circus flew into Adelaide for the 1994 world championship showdown, Benetton’s Michael Schumacher was leading Williams’ Damon Hill by a single point: 92 against 91. It had been a fractious year, marred by tragedy, argument, and controversy. Specifically, there had been multitudinous ructions centring on the alleged illegality of Schumacher’s Benetton car, including accusations whispered early in the season by Williams’ new superstar, Ayrton Senna, who would lose his life in an accident at Imola while racing flat-out to stay ahead of the very car whose regulatory compliance he suspected.

Damaged F1 cars of Damon Hill and Michael Schumacher after collision in 1994 Australian GP

Adelaide collision put both Hill and Schumacher out of the race — making the latter champion

Grand Prix Photo/Getty Images

In the absence of Senna, Hill had risen to the occasion magnificently, taking on the role of Williams’ team leader in much the same way as his father Graham had done at Lotus in 1968 when that team’s superstar, Jim Clark, had lost his life at Hockenheim.

At Adelaide 26 years later, Schumacher took the lead at the start of the race, and Hill slotted into second place behind him. They circulated like that for 35 laps until, on lap 36, by which time Hill had begun to look for a way past, Schumacher went off at Turn 5, smiting the right-side wall. Hill, who had been braking for the corner when Schumacher had had his ‘off’, had not appreciated the extent of the damage that had been caused to the Benetton, and he rounded the corner to see it on the grass, from where Schumacher was driving it back on to the circuit. With the world championship in his gunsights, and his cut-throat rival going slowly in the immediate aftermath of an off-track excursion, not surprisingly Hill dived for the inside line into Turn 6. Aware that his car was damaged, and facing the prospect of Hill passing him and motoring off to an easy win and world championship glory, Schumacher did the only thing that a man as ruthless as he could do: he steered right, ramming Hill’s Williams in the process, in a last-ditch effort to retain his rapidly evaporating world championship chance. In so doing he launched his own car into the air and into the left-side wall, damaging it terminally.

But that would have been OK for Schumacher as long as Hill’s car had also been mortally wounded, for Michael was a point ahead of Damon in the F1 drivers’ world championship standings. Hill limped his Williams around to the pits, but it was clear that its left-front suspension wishbone had been damaged – a kink where it should have been straight was immediately visible on the TV footage – and the car was retired. Some years later, in an interview published in a magazine of which I was then the editor, Williams’ technical director Patrick Head said: “We were 100% certain that Michael had been guilty of foul play, but Frank [Williams] and I decided not to lodge a protest because the team was still dealing with the very stressful repercussions of Ayrton’s death.”

 

4. Spa 2000

Michael Schumacher was always brilliant at Spa, but so was Mika Häkkinen, and in 2000 Mika was looking particularly good, finessing his McLaren to a brilliant pole time of 1min 50.646sec – nearly eight-tenths faster than anyone else’s best qualifying effort and almost a full second ahead of Schumacher in P4.

Sunday dawned wet – and, although the rain had stopped by the time the race would begin, there were still deep puddles all around the circuit, so the action began with a rolling start behind the safety car. Häkkinen duly took the lead.

Mika Hakkinen passes Michael Schumacher and Ricardo Zonta in 2001 F1 Belgian Grand Prix

Häkkinen passes Zonta and Schumacher

DPPI

Mika Hakkinen speaks to stern looking Michael Schumacher after 2001 F1 Belgian Grand Prix

An intense discussion post-GP

DPPI

As the track surface dried, it quickly became clear that slicks would very soon be the optimal tyre choice. As the pack was reshuffled after the ensuing pitstops, Häkkinen was still leading, from Schumacher. But Schumacher was now flying – he posted four fastest laps on the trot – and on lap 13, under pressure, Mika spun at Stavelot, allowing Michael to take the lead. By lap 20 he was more than 10 seconds ahead.

As the race entered its final phase, the track surface had dried almost completely. Now it was Häkkinen who was flying, and he caught Schumacher with half a dozen of the 44 laps to go. On lap 40 he shaped to outbrake Schumacher into Les Combes. As he was drawing level with him at 195mph (314km/h), Schumacher suddenly chopped him. Häkkinen abruptly backed off – but Schumacher’s move had been so late, and so fast, that contact between the two cars had been made. At that speed, in that place, he could have caused a truly catastrophic accident had Häkkinen not reacted so quickly. In truth, knowing Schumacher as he did, he had been ready for it.

From the archive

I was sitting next to my friend and fellow journalist Peter Windsor in the Spa press room at the time. Together we watched the next lap, in numbed silence. As the two cars rounded La Source and began the run up through Eau Rouge and Raidillon to Les Combes once again, Peter turned to me and said: “I bet he doesn’t pass him.”

“I bet he does,” I replied.

We now know that Häkkinen did indeed pass Schumacher – and Ricardo Zonta, too – in a move that has rightly gone down in racing folklore as one of the greatest ever F1 overtaking manoeuvres. But in the context of this column it is the callous violence of Schumacher’s chop on the previous lap that we are considering. After the race I spoke to Mika, as I often did in those days. He was delighted with his win — understandably — but he was still shaken by the events of the previous lap. In parc ferme the two men had spoken, at Häkkinen’s instigation, and the subject had been the near cataclysm, not the spectacular overtake. Mika told me that his exact words had been: “Don’t try that on me ever again.”

Afterwards, Schumacher denied that there had been contact. Häkkinen was privately adamant that there had been. Eight years later, by which time I had joined McLaren as its comms/PR chief, I was shown the front-wing end-plate from Häkkinen’s car, which Martin Whitmarsh had retained as a keepsake. It was broken, and flecked with tyre marks left by Schumacher’s rear Bridgestone.

 

3. Jerez 1997

What Michael Schumacher did to Jacques Villeneuve at Jerez in 1997 was remarkably similar to what he had done to Damon Hill at Adelaide three years before, with one important difference: it did not work. In 1997, as had been the case in 1994, Schumacher was leading his rival in the F1 drivers’ world championship by a single point, 78 against 77, and again he took the lead at the start of the race. Again, Villeneuve slotted in behind.

Michael Schumacher slides off the track at Jerez after driving into JAcques Villeneuve during 1997 F1 European Grand Prix

Schumacher slides off track after Villeneuve collision

Grand Prix Photo

By lap 48 it was clear that Villeneuve’s Williams was capable of lapping faster than Schumacher’s Ferrari – and at Turn 6, a sharp right-hander, he made his move. He braked later than Michael had, he had the inside line, and the cars were level. There was no doubt that he would win the corner, the race, and the F1 drivers’ world championship. Again, that prospect was unbearable for Schumacher, and he steered hard to his right, using his Ferrari as a battering ram with which to inflict what he hoped would be a terminal blow.

I was in the Jerez press room at the time, and I was almost deafened by a roar of disapproval from dozens of angry journalists nearby. If you were watching the race on TV in the UK, you would have heard Martin Brundle’s now famous words: “That didn’t work, Michael. You hit the wrong part of him, my friend. I don’t think that will cause Villeneuve a problem.”

As so often, Brundle was spot-on. So was Jacques Laffite, who was commentating on French TV at the same time, and shouted “Quel con!” – which you do not need to be a scholar of French to translate.

Michael Schumacher watches as his Ferrari F1 car is lifted out of gravel trap in 1997 European GP

Schumacher watches Villeneuve drive on as his Ferrari is recovered

THILL/ATP/DPPI

Schumacher’s Ferrari was irreparably damaged, and he stood trackside for the next few laps, watching Villeneuve nurse his damaged Williams to third place, thereby earning points sufficient to overhaul Schumacher in the F1 drivers’ world championship and become Canada’s first and so far only F1 world champion.

The Jerez stewards declared the Schumacher-Villeneuve coming-together a “racing incident”, which clearly it was not, and their judgment caused a media outcry. Two weeks later Schumacher was summoned to an FIA disciplinary hearing in Paris, where he was disqualified from the 1997 F1 world drivers’ championship but was allowed to keep his wins, his podiums, and his points. No, we journalists could not work that one out either. FIA President Max Mosley explained the ruling by stating that Schumacher’s actions had been “deliberate but not premeditated”. Yeah, right.

 

2. Monaco 2006

It was the arrogant cynicism of Michael Schumacher’s professional foul at Monaco in 2006 that took the breath away, for it was neither violent nor dangerous, as were some of his actions described above. On the contrary, it took place at 10mph (16km/h), at which speed he faked losing control of his Ferrari, stopping it at Rascasse in order to block the narrow available track space and thereby prevent Renault’s Fernando Alonso, who had been running behind him, from pinching his pole position.

Fernando Alonso drives past stalled ferrari of Michael Schumacher in 2006 F1 Monaco Grand Prix qualifying

Alonso is forced to back off in qualifying as Schumacher’s Ferrari is recovered

Gilles Levent/DPPI

The FIA stewards’ verdict was damning, for it stated that they had been “left with no alternative but to conclude that the driver [Schumacher] deliberately stopped his car on the circuit in the last few minutes of qualifying at a time at which he had thus far set the fastest lap time”. They added: “This is a breach of 2006 F1 sporting regulations article 116, and therefore a driving infringement. Article 112 enables the stewards to delete any number of a driver’s qualifying times for a driving infringement, which decision is not susceptible to appeal.” Significantly, earlier that day, the same stewards had deleted Alonso’s Renault team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella’s fastest three qualifying times, for impeding David Coulthard’s Red Bull, noting that “such action may not have been deliberate”. In Schumacher’s case no such disclaimer was entertained, and all his qualifying times were duly deleted, relegating him to the back of the grid.

In the post-qualifying press conference Schumacher sought to justify his actions to a disbelieving posse of angry journalists, of whom I was one. “You’d better look at the TV footage,” he told us. “You’ll see me locking-up and running out of road.” We had looked at the TV footage, and we had seen him doing no such thing.

From the archive

Moreover, in the paddock, ex-drivers who were as outraged as we were had begun to call him out. Jackie Stewart said: “That was too blatant. When you watch it in slow motion, turning the wheel one way then the other, he had plenty of time to do something.”

Keke Rosberg was blunter still: “He’s a cheap cheat. He should go home and leave the sport to honest people.”

One of the FIA stewards, Joachin Verdegay, also allowed himself to be interviewed by us pressmen, and what he said amounted to a slam dunk. “If he’d done what he’d done in a way that had damaged his car, we’d probably have filed the incident as an error,” he said. “But, as it was, to park it like that, well, you can only do that deliberately. Also, I mean, he braked over 50% more heavily on that lap than on any of his other laps, then he did some totally unnecessary and pathetic counter-steering. That lasted five metres, until there was no longer any chance for him to get through the turn normally. The speed at which he allegedly lost control was 16km/h [10mph]. That’s very difficult to accept. And the engine [which was fitted with an anti-stall device] shut off only because he wanted it to, and he did that by waiting enough time before engaging the clutch.”

Schumi was bang to rights this time.

 

1. Hungaroring 2010

I have left what I regard as Michael Schumacher’s most grievous sin to last. It is also, in my opinion, his most baffling. After all, he was 41. He had retired and returned. One might have hoped that the passing years had conferred upon him an ability to treat disappointment with equanimity, but at Hungaroring in 2010 we discovered that they had not.

Mercedes of Michael Schumacher leads Rubens Barrichello Williams in 2010 F1 Hungarian Grand Prix

Barrichello and Schumacher battled for tenth place in Hungary

Attila Kisbenedek/Getty Images

Moreover, he was fighting for a measly 10th place, with Williams’ Rubens Barrichello, an ex-Ferrari team-mate of his who had been loyal to him during his glory years at the Scuderia, when he had been winning F1 world championships seemingly at will. Yet what he did, at 200mph (322km/h), risked both their lives, for so very little potential reward. It was literally deranged. If you have never seen it, I urge you to find it on YouTube, where the TV footage is freely available. You will see that Barrichello ran his Williams into the slipstream of Schumacher’s Mercedes on the pit straight, and was closing fast. He then pointed his car to the inside, ready to make a pass into Turn 1, placing it to the right of Schumacher.

Then, just as he had done with Häkkinen on the approach to Les Combes, at Spa, 10 years earlier, at high speed Schumacher jerked his car to the right, despite the presence of Barrichello’s fast-passing Williams alongside him on that side, risking limb and, yes, life, in an attempt to make his old team-mate back off. But Rubens was already halfway through his passing manoeuvre, which he managed to complete only by swerving to within inches of the concrete pit wall to his right. Yes, he pulled off the pass, but Michael’s wild defence could easily have killed them both.

On the car-to-pit radio Barrichello yelled: “He should be black-flagged for that! Black flag! That was horrible!”

Horrible indeed it was. I was a McLaren man by 2010, and I remember speaking with Jackie Stewart outside our paddock hospitality unit after the race. He was literally shaking with rage. “That was one of the most blatant abuses of another driver that I’ve ever seen,” he said. “It was a terrible example from a man who’s won seven world titles. It was bully-boy tactics.”

A passing Alex Wurz added: “He knew exactly what he was doing, he did it absolutely deliberately, and a collision could have been fatal.”

And, finally, Niki Lauda said: “To endanger a fellow competitor in such a way is completely unnecessary. I simply can’t understand why he does these things.”

I think Niki’s comment expresses extremely well the enduring enigma of Michael Schumacher: how, and why, could a driver so brilliant also be so bestial? There was absolutely no need for it. It makes no sense, and it is a terrible pity. Thank god he never killed anyone. Nonetheless, we wish him well, diminished by injury as he now is and, we suppose, he always now will be.

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