Michael Schumacher has spent more than a decade requiring round-the-clock medical care since the life-changing injuries he suffered in a skiing accident in the French Alps
A former Formula 1 driver and friend of Michael Schumacher and his family has explained why the stricken racing legend’s wife Corinna and son Mick do not talk about his accident. Schumacher suffered life-changing injuries when he hit his head on a rock while skiing off-piste in the French Alps in December 2013.
Updates on his condition have been rare ever since, with Corinna fiercely devoted to protecting her husband’s privacy. Some small nuggets of information have been revealed at times, though, such as this week when German F1 reporter Felix Gorner said the seven-time champion is unable to speak.
Only a close circle of trusted individuals is allowed to visit Michael and to know details of his condition or medical car. But there are plenty more within the sport who are able to offer their friendship and support without needing to be included in that select group.
One of those is former F1 driver Christian Danner who has been friendly with Schumacher and his family for many years. His punditry work means he is still a regular fixture in the paddock which means he bumps into members of the family whenever they visit.
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Speaking about his relationship with them, Danner revealed how Michael’s accident is never a topic of conversation. “Corinna and Mick don’t talk about the accident. It’s their way of handling the issue,” he told SpaceportSweden.
“Last year in Monza I spoke to Corinna, sometimes a little bit to Mick. I’ve known Corinna ever since she was [former F1 driver] Heinz-Harald Frentzen’s girlfriend, so it goes way back. Whenever we see each other, we say hello and we have a coffee together. It’s the Formula 1 family.”
Schumacher is one of only two seven-time champions in F1 history, the other being Lewis Hamilton. The Brit has also equalled or surpassed many of Schumacher’s other records in the sport, but even he has never won five drivers’ titles in a row like the German managed between 2000 and 2004, at the height of his iconic partnership with Ferrari.
Though he was a gifted driver, Schumacher’s methods were not always celebrated. Recalling how he used to drive, Danner went on to point out how Schumacher was actually rather unpopular among his peers during his career because of the way he would go about his racing.
Danner said: “On the track, Schumacher was occasionally quite nasty. In his manoeuvres he was quite unfair. Just listen to what Mika Hakkinen has to say and what other people like Frentzen or Nick Heidfeld have to say. You just have to watch how many people he drove off the track. He used a lot of nasty tricks, which are luckily not allowed anymore because they were seriously dangerous.
“In that respect, he wasn’t a very popular man among the other drivers at all actually. But to watch him drive a car was such a pleasure because he had such car control and such a specific driving style which was very hard. It was an incredibly intense driving style.
“He could go faster than others because of his way of driving. It’s difficult to explain but I adored him for that. And from a human aspect, I always got on with him. We weren’t close friends because his social life was rather different to mine. He had a different group of friends and a different lifestyle and everything.
“But I did get on with him very well whenever we met, whenever we had a chat or whenever we did something together which happened occasionally because for the past 27 years, I actually traveled to every single Grand Prix. It’s the Formula 1 family thing, you kind of run into the same people all over again. In that respect I got on with Michael quite well.”
