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[dan2k]

Good, bad or just ugly?
A look at Michael Schumacher the man

Michael Schumacher may be brilliant, but is he nice?

Matt Bishop examines a puzzling personality

In Britain, the land where underdogs are championed and Germans are scorned ­he was always going to be up against it. We like our sporting heroes to be home-grown and unremarkable ­ better even to be incompetent rather than haughty.

Only in Britain could the world’s worst ski jumper, a man who liked to be known as Eddie the Eagle in ironic homage to his inelegant ‘flight’, be lionised as he was during and briefly after the 1988 Winter Olympics; only in this country could a TV series as footlingly cliché-inspired as ’Allo ’Allo ­in which Germans were stereotyped as incompetent Nazi perverts ­ be made fully 40 years after the cessation of World War II.

Neither underdog nor unGerman, of course, Michael Schumacher is the kind of sportsman the British hate. As such, the adjective that has stuck most resolutely to him these past 10 Formula 1 seasons is ‘arrogant’ ­ indeed, many who have never met him are happy to describe him as such.

So is he arrogant? He is not. He is confident. And his confidence is hardly misplaced. Like all true champions, he is aware of his genius. He cannot tell you whence it originates ­ “I don’t know. I just get in the car, do up my belts and do what I do” ­ but he knows that it is there.

Why would he not be confident? Why, when he and he alone can routinely and repeatedly do what no other F1 driver can do ­ namely, conjure leech-like grip out of the nervy conjunction of cold tyres and wet Tarmac would he approach a grand prix with anything other than the detached insouciance that always sets apart the majestic from the merely great?

Nonetheless, he frowns a lot. He worries. He works hard. He is more of a Geoff Boycott than an Ian Botham. Just as Boycott worked with limitless diligence on his batting technique throughout his career as a professional cricketer, and became England’s greatest post-war opening batsman in the process, so Schumacher continues to leave no stone unturned even now, after three world championships ­in his efforts to improve.

Fiorano regulars will tell you that after a long day’s testing his muscular backview can be seen at 10.00pm or later in Enzo Ferrari’s old house, silhouetted in front of a flickering TV screen. So what, you say?

The ‘so what’ is that he is invariably helmeted, and the helmet is a specially-weighted one, and his head is bobbing from side to side lest the two race distances he has completed that day were not sufficient to keep his neck muscles up to the mark. Such dedication inspires envy in his peers, and with it dislike. Arrogance
it’s not.

Besides, face to face, Michael is a likeable guy. No F1 driver’s time is in more demand from extraneous parties than his, yet making an arrangement to interview him remains a reasonably trouble-free operation. You apply to his PR woman; you are given a date; you turn up; he answers your questions.

If, as is usual, the time allotted is half an hour, he will give you 30 minutes. Not 29 and not 31. He will listen attentively. Should you make the error of asking him a question which he finds banal (we try not to do this on F1 Racing), he will courteously trot out a stock answer; should you excite his imagination with an innovative theory or a provocative suggestion, he will think hard about what you are saying, make sure he has understood exactly what you are getting at, then evolve a careful, considered and often surprisingly revealing reply.

While he is doing this, he will be frowning. And if it so happens that, as is likely, Darren Heath (or another of the handful of F1 photographers whose artistic focus can be roused from its logo-obsessed myopia by the insight into our heroes’ souls that such facial contortions can occasionally evince) chooses this moment to turn his lens in Michael’s direction, then the result will be a picture of a sad face.

Or, to put it another (cooler) way, a moody image.

Picture editors like moody images, and tend to select them above happier representations (especially of Schumacher, who tends to look toothily idiotic when captured mid-guffaw); sub-editors, in turn, append captions which stress the apparent melancholy; and so it goes. F1 Racing has certainly published more pictures of sad Schuey than of happy Schuey.

In fact, he smiles a lot. With the few pressmen he knows well (all German), he will chew the fat and fool about. He will not chat for hours with all his mechanics ­ Ferrari are now too big an operation for that to be feasible or even desirable ­but his body language when talking to the dozen or so key men in red indicates trust, respect and a degree of affection.

In large press conferences (which he hates), he can be evasive and uncooperative, but he will as often as not begin proceedings by feigning a jauntiness which, unsurprisingly, he finds hard to maintain under sustained questioning on a
thorny issue.

It is then, when pressed by a posse of hungry hacks geed up by the scent of semi-scandal, that Michael’s mouth can contort into a shape which I have likened in the past to a cat’s anus. Not a pretty sight. Again, slave to his art, Mr Heath is usually on hand to immortalise the moment.

Press conferences are difficult for Michael because of the way he behaves on track, of course. Post-race, you are unlikely to spot a horde of mediamen loitering beside, say, the Jordan motorhome in the hope of getting a quote from Heinz-Harald Frentzen ­and that’s not only because Michael has won and Heinz-Harald has finished, say, fifth.

No, Frentzen’s race will likely have
been an unobtrusive and lonely run, maximising his strategy and keeping out of trouble; Schumacher’s will have been mesmerisingly committed and, should his lead have been at any time under threat from a rival, frighteningly aggressive.

He may be like Boycott in terms of preparation, but his heat-of-the-moment approach is hardly cricket. And it’s this, Michael Schumacher’s congenital inability to cede a place when that place has been fairly and squarely won by a foe, that makes people call him not only arrogant but also ruthless.

Ruthlessness is the world’s second- favourite Schuey epithet, and it’s a harder one to absolve him of. Bluntly, his career has been punctuated by manoeuvres born of a base and villainous refusal to play the game by the rules, Adelaide 1994 and Jerez ’97 being the archetypes.

Jerez and Adelaide are the moments that have passed into racing folklore the equivalents of John McEnroe yelling “You cannot be serious!” at Jeremy Shales, or David Beckham kicking Diego Simeone, or (dare I say it?) Mike Tyson biting off Evander Holyfield’s ear­ but there have in truth been many other such occasions.

Michael’s startline modus operandi is now a brutal thing to see. If he gets away well, all is well. If, as is more common, Mika Hakkinen or AN Other gets away better, the consequent trajectory etched in red over a billion TV screens worldwide bespeaks the mentality of a man suffused with the implacable ethos of Marshal Pétain at Verdun in 1916.

Pétain famously said of the advancing German forces, “Ils ne passeront pas.” That, of course, was war. Young men died. Someone should tell Schumacher about the Treaty of Versailles.

So why does he do it? Because it works, and because he isn’t (significantly) censured for it. And it’s catching. In last month’s F1 Racing, Damon Hill interviewed Jenson Button, and quizzed the young man assiduously about the German’s race tactics. Of his ragged swerve into Jacques Villeneuve’s Williams at the ’97 European GP, Button said, “The only thing that was wrong with what he did was that it didn’t work.”

The ethos of the professional foul in F1 is now well and truly with us. QED. Nice it isn’t. Nonetheless, Schumacher commands intense loyalty. His three world titles have been won with two different teams, yet the inner sanctum on each occasion has been largely the same.

Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and Tad Czapski all followed him from Benetton to Ferrari - indeed the Brawn-Schumacher axis is reminiscent of Chapman-Clark, Tyrrell- Stewart or Head-Jones in its effectiveness, innovation and, above all, reciprocity. They were made for each other.

Perhaps more than any driver in the sport’s history, Michael understands the importance of the team. On that fateful day at Suzuka last year, when he at last delivered to Ferrari their first drivers’ world championship since Jody Scheckter won at Monza in 1979, Michael got out of his car, punched the air, sank to his knees, then marched over and hugged every single member of the team.

Chivvied throughout this outpouring of emotion by FOCA officials anxious that the podium ceremony should not be unduly delayed (TV scheduling is everything in F1, remember), he was oblivious ­a man on a mission to say thank you to the chaps.

His first GP win, for Benetton at Spa in ’92, was the same. One of his mechanics that day was Steve Matchett, who has now given up spannering in favour of scribbling. In The Mechanic’s Tale, his autobiography, published in ’99, Matchett wrote: “Michael’s rapture at winning that race is something he has continued to show with every successive win. He understands that to cross the finishline ahead of all the others involves a massive amount of effort by the whole team, as well as the driver.

"A fact that some other drivers have clearly forgotten. On the occasion of that first win, as with each of his subsequent wins, Michael’s sheer happiness was a recognition of that team effort ­the fabricators, the machinists, the composite
specialists, the electricians, the mechanics, the designers, everyone. The toil of hundreds is reflected in the utter joy of his podium celebrations.

"I have never felt such an integral part of a team as when working with Michael and sharing in the pleasure of his victories.”

So, a mixture then. Ruthless, probably; confident, certainly; generous, undoubtedly; warm-hearted, unquestionably. To those who know him best, a good bloke. Indubitably.

[Gudrun]

Thank you for this post. @dan2K
And I hope, this does not mean to have opened a can of worms.
I do remember Katayama saying, that he has never seen a driver being as nice to children as M.Sch.
His own daughter was just in love with M.Sch.
If someone understands the german language, you will find out how nice and funny he really is. To give an interview in a foreighn language is always harder, and harder to understand.

[100cc]

Nice article, although I don't agree with everything. like the comparison between heinz and schumi. The article often makes it seem as if schumacher is the only driver commited to his job.......

[Ross Stonefeld]

With the hassle over pasting images, is there any problem reposting articles that exist online as the property of magazines that have webpages? Obviously there's no bandwith problem, but what about copyrights?

[B.Traven]

Thanks , Dan2k , for having taken the time to transcribe this very interesting article .
It confirms what I ever thought that most of Michaels bad image it's due to simple prejudice .

[magic]

spa '98.

[HSJ]

B. Traven, not fully due to prejudice. I'm a physicist and enjoy classical music. In both field Germans are one of the best ever and I admire Germans and Germany a LOT. However, I can't stand MS because of the way he works. It just isn't me; I can identify with MH (my fellow Finn) perfectly, but MS represents for me the prophet of all those who I despise because of the way they conduct themselves.

[magic]

forget about the german bit.

ms is nice when things are going his way.

and he'll do everything to get what he wants.

that includes training very hard and pleasing his team,
but also ramming quicker men and making life hard for his too weak and/or slow teammates.

let's face it, the guy cannot lose, nobody is going to stop him.
ms got the keys of the best car.

the best way to reveal the real ms would be teaming him up with let's say jv and give them both zero teamorders.

i foresee a lot of spa'98 scenes.

no more mister nice guy.

[CFC1888]

I agree JV and MS should team up, be interesting to see who would end as the champion, my money would be on Villeneuve, much better driver and he's proved that. The fact that he was forced out of Williams only hindered his chances of being an even better driver.

[Ross Stonefeld]

How was Villeneuve forced out of Williams?

[Williams]

Michael is the ultimate Senna protege. Focused, dedicated and utterly ruthless on the track. Senna, too, was considered to be incredibly charming, sensitive and considerate in person, but that didn't stop him from doing what he had to do to win on the track, or either during or between races. Michael is continuing in the same tradition.

[Nikolas Garth]

Originally posted by magic
spa '98.

Senna doing a girl-like punch to Irvine, because Irvine overtook Senna.

[Nikolas Garth]

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
How was Villeneuve forced out of Williams?

Considering the rest of his post, you are one optimistic fellow expecting an answer that makes any sense.

[Peeko]

...is nice when things are going his way.

and he'll do everything to get what he wants.

that includes training very hard and pleasing his team,
but also ramming quicker men and making life hard for his too weak and/or slow teammates.

let's face it, the guy cannot lose, nobody is going to stop him.
...got the keys of the best car.
- magic

Ayrton Senna?...No, Michael Schumacher...No wait! Senna! No! Schumacher!...Senna...Schumacher...Senna...Schumcaher...Fits the both of them to a tee...

[Williams]

I'm just waiting to hear if Michael ever utters the word "But I am Schumacher !".

[magic]

aber ich bin schumacher, bernie, und i brauche diese tractioncontrolle.

[magic]

'...aber max, der hill hat mich gerammt in aidelaide'94, ich bin unschuldig, ich bin deine kleine schumacher...'

[magic]

'...aber jean, ich wollte nur der jv helfen diese jerez-kurbe zu machen, du kennt mir doch, ich bin ihre freundliche schumacher...'

[magic]

luca calling ms in '99:

'...michael, i want your lazy ass back in the car.
i want you to get that first wdc in twenty years you promised me!..."

micheal, giving luca the verbal finger:

'...no way luca, i'm counting my money. i'm schumacher, ..and ehh. **** you.....tut..tut..tut...tut

[Ross Stonefeld]

I assume thats German for magic saying he's an idiot

[magic]

but i'm magic?

[Peeko]

Then do a little trick and disappear...

[magic]

Peeko
quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
...is nice when things are going his way.

and he'll do everything to get what he wants.

that includes training very hard and pleasing his team,
but also ramming quicker men and making life hard for his too weak and/or slow teammates.

let's face it, the guy cannot lose, nobody is going to stop him.
...got the keys of the best car.
- magic
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ayrton Senna?...No, Michael Schumacher...No wait! Senna! No! Schumacher!...Senna...Schumacher...Senna...Schumcaher...Fits the both of them to a tee...
------------------------------------------------------------------------

hey peeko, are you really suggesting prost was a weak or slow teammate?

[Smooth]

Originally posted by magic
but i'm magic?

your act is getting stale. Maybe get a hot assistant for a distraction, cause your incessant senna-isms start to get stale. The man was less than perfect, just thought you should know.....

[magic]

Smooth
quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by magic
but i'm magic?
------------------------------------------------------------------------

your act is getting stale. Maybe get a hot assistant for a distraction, cause your incessant senna-isms start to get stale. The man was less than perfect, just thought you should know.....
------------------------------------------------------------------------

i might consider a new nickname (not), but it was your buddy todd he ruined this interesting topic by introducing 'him' into it.

[Peeko]

magic, Senna raced 10 seasons. Prost was his teamate for two. The others? Cocetto, Johny Dumfries, Satoru Nakajima, Elio De Angelis, Gerhard Berger, and Hill for a few races. Schumacher's behavior on the track is no way different from Senna's, yet you vilainize Schumacher for his. And you see Senna with a Halo over his head. Oh, wait a minute! That's right! There was motivation and reasoning behind Senna's ramming! Duh! What was I thinking???? Yeah, you're quite the magician.

About the article. Pretty much sums up what I always thought about Schumcaher; he's human.

[magic]

oops sorry todd, it was peeko, smooth.

(in random order)

[Ross Stonefeld]

uh, where's Todd?

[magic]

so ross, you're looking for todd, right?

'...a little trick and disappear...'

don't mess with maggie.

[Peeko]

Holy crap. 1 hour and 6 minutes to think of that one...

[magic]

peeko, though my nickname is magic, i'm still figuring out how to stay online in my car and sleep.

[Peeko]

Dude, if you don't know...

[Smooth]

magic, peeko, !

[The RedBaron]

magic knows how to ruin any half decent thread. He hates that the body of article shows that MS is indeed human
and not the villian he perceives. His whole campaign is based on the thought that Schuey will one day shatter or surpass every record/ achievement that his beloved Senna ever had....bar the 65 poles.

How you can't differentiate between MS and Senna in terms of on track behaviour is beyond belief. Like Smooth said.....you are indeed very stale and boring....like a broken record player!

[magic]

before senna was rammed by prost in '89, he never, in all those 5 seasons in f1, ever had recieved an official warning by the fisa.

so what's your point redb.?

only after he protested the stolen racewin of suzuka'89, senna had to face balestre for the first and last time.

senna was threathened by a possible ban if he didn't apologize, after accusing balestre of treating him unfair.

nobody did agree with balestre's strange and pro-french actions and less than a year later balestre was dropped.

only redb. and probably balestre still accusing senna of being unfair.

on the other hand, ms collects black flags, racebans, slaps on wrists and the removing of pointstotals.
only his chops after fxcked up starts have been left unpunished up untill now.

[The RedBaron]

Magic
Maybe you should ask Prost, Irvine, Piquet and Mansell to name but a few, what they thought about your beloved Senna's gamesmanship on the track. Your a blinkered fanatic......too bad that too many posters on this BB know the real truth about Senna the racer!
Dirty driving was introduced to F1 with regularity by Saint Senna himself.....shame that Schumacher should choose A.S as his idol and therefore immulate his on track behaviour.

[magic]

don't believe the hype, redb.

do you really think those old men liked to be kicked around by this cocky brazilian kid coming out of nowhere, from day one?

man, you make even piquet sound resonable, and we all know he well he took the arrival of a new brazilian hero halfway eighties.

[The RedBaron]

No, I believe my eyes and the races I watched....hence why I never liked Senna the racer and favoured anyone but him.

[magic]

same over here.

only exchange 'senna' for 'ms'.

have a nice day.

[dan2k]

To put it simply.

When people think of F1, they think of Schumacher.

I think most people will agree with that.
He has achieved alot to get where he is today, even if your anti-schumacher, at least applause him for what he has done so far.
No matter what you think, he will go down in the books as one of the greatest F1 driver ever.
Personaly, I think he is a great bloke.;)

[Chris G.]

So, did Matt Bishop ever write any negative stories about MS? I get the feeling, from the article, that he had at one time.

Anyway, I really liked the article -thanks for posting it.

It should be an interesting season. 2000 was actually a "learning year" for MS - the mistakes were often pressure-driven, the pressure of years at Ferrari with no WDC. I think in 2001 we'll see even more talent, cunning and results.

If you think MS haters feel scorned now, just wait till 2001-2002 off-season.

[The RedBaron]

oh god....can you imagine another 2 years of whining from Frans and magic

[magic]

wouldn't a real challenge for ms make watching more interesting?

after seeing gilles/jody, prost/lauda, mansell/piquet,senna/prost and not seeing ms/another-great-in-same-car, i'm convinced it would.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Im inclined with Magic. Its really Mika vs Michael. Its not that other drivers arent good enough to step up, but the gap from the front to the rest is way too big right now. It detracts somewhat from a lot of the WC's won this decade

[The RedBaron]

Mika and Michael can't help that the rest of grid are not up to scratch, it's unfortunate! Maybe Montoya, Button and Kimi might present stiffer challenges in years to come.

magic - it's all about destiny. Unlucky for you that Prost
and Senna were in the same era. No one can change that.

[Rudolf]

Where did the ugly bit come from?

[magic]

The RedBaron
__________________


magic - it's all about destiny. Unlucky for you that Prost
and Senna were in the same era. No one can change that.
__________________

i'm lucky, i saw senna vs prost.

i'm unhappy they both look bad bad in statistics as a result of their ongoing duels.

i'm unhappy senna wasn't driving williams in '95'96'97.

we all should be unhappy about that.

[goGoGene]

Originally posted by Rudolf
Where did the ugly bit come from?

Have you ever seen a picture of Schumie with his helmet off?

ggg

[magic]

herzlich willkommen, herr schumacher, im atlas bb.
fur dieses season wunsche ich ihnen hals und beinbruch.

[Brent]

M.Schumacher
Junior Member
02-01-2001 09:10
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Danke für das freundliche Willkommen. Ihr Interesse für mein Wohl, mein Bein und Ansatz ist sehr thoughtfull. Seien Sie sicher, meinen indossierten Haarsignalformer zu kaufen. Vergessen Sie nie, Sie wertSIND ihn.


IP: Logged

yeah excellent!!