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April 26, 2024

Michael Schumacher: The exceptional racer turns 50

Michael Schumacher turns 50 on 3 January. A round birthday of the national hero who raises a big question: how is he? Hardly anyone outside the family can answer that question truthfully. Unfortunately, it is hard to avoid vague speculations and rumors circulating on "Schumis" health after his devastating skiing accident on December 29, 2013.

Actually we should stop it. With the preliminary, back and status reports. Even with the success hymns about his Formula 1 past, which make the contrast to his current life particularly painful. Actually, we should be silent! And hope! But Michael Schumacher has now the crazy aura of a national hero, his fate is not only moving millions of Germans.

Michael Schumacher: A film-ready Vita

This is due to his film-ready Vita, his adventurous career as the best Formula One driver of all time. There's never been one like him. "307 races, 81,000 kilometers on the limit, 91 victories in the 200 finish arrivals in Benetton and Ferrari, won almost every second race, seven World Championship titles," writes "Bild.de". For reporter Helmut Uhl, who has accompanied him for 20 years during his racing career, Schumi is one of the great phenomena of sports history, "because one diligence to fall down, perfection to obsession, ambition beyond the pain threshold, the will to win to the near incomprehension only learn to a certain extent, for the rest you have to be Schumacher ".

This results in a picture of the Rhenish automotive apprentice to the legend. From the first kart with a lawnmower engine to the seven-time Formula One World Champion. At four he was already sitting in a kart, with which he boarded the kart track of Kerpen (west of Cologne). Father Rolf Schumacher, a skilled stove builder, was the groundskeeper here, while the mother Elisabeth ran the associated kiosk.

Great inner drive

Already here he was different from other childlike drivers. "Schumacher used to be in the rain when he was younger, to compensate for the technical deficits of his own construction, and laid the foundations for the unique vehicle mastery of the future world champion," says a special edition of Schumi's 50th anniversary in the magazine "auto, motor und Sports".

With Michael Schumacher something else was added, the all-important inner drive. As he once said, "Bild" says: "If you do not have this unconditional will to win, you're lost in F1." Helmut Uhl also talked about his friend Schumi: "Even without a racing suit and horsepower, he masters his undying skills and, before his first Malaysian victory in 2000, he gets up at night and practices pool billiards because he lost in the evening Evening, before the race, he wins. "

On the one hand, Michael Schumacher can be ruthless against the competition, on the other hand he is funny and amiable and often supplies his racing teams with the schnitzel of mother Elisabeth. "He was vulnerable, he was brutal, he was good-natured, but also suspicious, he was capable of learning, but also stubborn," says Helmut Uhl.

Corinna plays the biggest role

The distinctive Schumacher chin, which he sometimes provokes to his fellow human beings almost provocatively, becomes the symbol of an indomitable will that seems to make everything possible. But Schumacher still has a second face. He is emotional, sometimes also romantic. "He secretly wiped tears from his cheeks in love movies in front of the TV," Helmut Uhl knows.

All of a sudden, the rider's relentless harshness is wiped away. A friendly person, a believing Christian becomes visible. This second face belongs to the family man Michael Schumacher. Father, mother, brother Ralf (also he racer) play a major role in his private life, the largest is awarded to his wife Corinna (49).

Love luck away from the glamor world

He met the trained office clerk in 1991. She was previously the girlfriend of Formula 1 colleague Heinz-Harald Frentzen (51). Corinna is herself a successful equestrian - and "a very great driver", as he once said. With the kart she was only half a second slower than he.

For the wedding in 1995, he gives the horse lover a ranch in Switzerland. The two shut their luck off, it is only theirs, the public has no business there. This carefree life beyond the racing stables and pistes are both too precious for the big stage. Only once do they talk about their marriage in public. The RTL presenter Frauke Ludowig (54) they reveal the secret of their love. It is, says Corinna, that many talking to each other. Although she never talks about it publicly, she knows exactly how fragile happiness can be on the side of a Formula 1 driver. That the danger threatens with every training, a fortiori with each race.

Accidents on the racetrack

But Schumacher always has the proverbial luck of the able-bodied. Until 2001 he survives eleven serious crashes in the racing car in his life-threatening industry almost unhurt. Only in 1991, when in training for the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka with his Benetton at speed 280 loses control of the vehicle and crashes after numerous turners in the lateral limit, he breaks a cervical vertebra. But that will not be determined until years later, because in the said race Schumi goes for sure at the start.

In 1999, Schumi drives into a tire stack at the Silverstone Grand Prix in Silverstone. In his Ferrari, the front wheels had blocked. Schumacher breaks the tibia - and fails six races. Ten years later, he talks about the accident in Johannes B. Kerner's talk show: "I lie there and notice how I catch myself a little bit more and calm down and feel my heartbeat, suddenly feeling like my heartbeat is getting less and less and suddenly Lights go out, and then I think that feels good when you're on the way up. "

But because he can not renounce the fascinating rush of speed, Schumi also likes to get on the racing bike. He survives three lighter accidents with minor injuries. His former Ferrari team boss Jean Todt said loudly "image": "If I could, I would forbid it. There is not one who has not fallen down yet." But wife Corinna Schumacher shows understanding: "Michael knows exactly what he's doing, I trust him absolutely and treat him with his fun."

2009 then the accident in the southern Spanish city of Cartagena. Schumi crashes in tests with his Honda 1000 CBR Fireblade, crashes into a tire stack and gets some injuries. Michael Schumacher has survived, because a year later he starts his comeback in Formula 1, this time at Mercedes.

Schumacher family: "Please understand"

Finally, the 29th of December 2013. Schumi is skiing in Méribel, a winter sports resort in the French Alps. His son Mick, then 14, is with the party. Schumi is an excellent skier and wears a helmet according to regulations. Then he crashes at moderate speed (about 20 km / h) over a stone in the snow and bangs his head against another rock. The doctors diagnose a traumatic brain injury. For more than four years he is already in the rehabilitation phase in his private estate in Switzerland. About its current state, almost nothing penetrates to the outside.

This policy of absolute secrecy should be in the spirit of Michael Schumacher - and has its reason. After the fall of Méribel, some journalists have experienced a "real hunting fever" with the patient and his family. This went so far that a reporter in the Grenoble hospital, where Schumi was initially lying, when Schumacher's father spent his time in the hospital room. Another disguised himself as a priest. Finally, secretly made photos are to be shown, showing him in his sickbed. They must have been made by someone who actually has the full trust of the family. The pictures are offered to various editors for one million euros. Nobody buys, instead the prosecution investigates. And the Schumacher family secludes even more consistently.

Now, just before Schumacher's 50th birthday, wife Corinna and the family thanked all fans with a statement on Facebook. The post said among other things:

You can be sure that he is in good hands and that we do everything humanly possible to help him. Please understand if we follow Michael's wishes and leave as sensitive a topic as health, as ever before, in the privacy.

Condition of Michael Schumacher: "A long fight"

Corinna continues to watch over the shielded Swiss Schumacher estate. The common children Gina-Maria (21) and Mick (19) are themselves talented athletes. Gina-Maria, like her mother, is an excellent rider. As a Western rider, she even won a gold medal at the 2017 World Cup. And son Mick follows in the footsteps of his father and is considered the upcoming talent in racing. He is already Formula 3 European champion. "My role model is my dad, simply because he's the best, my idol," he says in an RTL interview about his dad.

Wife, children, father, some doctors and carers know the true state of Michael Schumacher. And the statement by manager Sabine Kehm from 2015 still applies:

We're happy to say that he's making progress, and I always say that in light of the severity of his head injuries. "(...)" But of course, it will be a long fight for those involved.