Michael Schumacher
Michael Schumacher
Michael Schumacher; born 3 January 1969) is a German retired racing driver. He is a seven-time Formula One World Champion and is widely regarded as one of the greatest Formula One drivers of all time. He was named Laureus World Sportsman of the Year twice. He won two titles with Benetton in 1994 and 1995 before moving to Ferrari where he drove for eleven years. His time with Ferrari yielded five consecutive titles between 2000 and 2004...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionRace Car Driver
Date of Birth3 January 1969
CityHurth, Germany
CountryGermany
In one sense, yes but I will still be an ambassador of San Marino.
I feel very different. After you've had a story of success like we had, to then have a hard season, you sort of get tired by the end of it. To then be off the pace all winter would be very tough. Very consuming on the energy side. Now, it's the opposite of last season. You feel so much more motivated and happy to run with this car, to see you're there and that you can fight them, maybe. It's great.
An engineer can look at the data, but he needs a translator from the cockpit - the driver - to understand it completely. For example, only the driver can tell you why he abruptly takes his foot off the gas pedal at a certain point. The data doesn't necessarily tell the engineer whether the driver made a mistake at that point or the car was acting up. The information the driver provides often helps determine the direction of development.
People get excited around me and behave differently than they would normally. I don't feel different from anyone else, except that I drive a racing car round in circles faster than somebody else.
I didn't have statistics in my mind when I was racing. It was always a consequence - a nice consequence. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't the reason I was racing.
I like to share my life, and spend time with someone I love. That has worked 100 per cent with my wife.
You arrive at Formula One being very skeptical, how far can your talent deal with all this, and then you understand those guys are human and pretty reasonable, and finally succeeding in winning your first race, in circumstance as such, it was just an amazing moment.