To be fair, my son Andrew and wife Delia both got a lot out of ‘Schumacher,’ the high-profile documentary on the beleaguered seven-time Formula 1 world champion produced by Netflix and released globally last Wednesday.
Both – obviously – knew the name, and the fact that the German had played a fairly key role in the sport ‘the old man’ (that would be me!!!) has been passionate about for as long as both can remember.
In saying that, that’s really all they knew about the bugger; bar of course the ultimate ‘elephant in the room’ – the fact that the now 52-year-old suffered severe head injuries in a skiing accident at Meribel in France in 2013 (when he was aged just 44) and since then has never been seen – let alone interviewed, or even photographed, in public.
So, from that point of view the doco – produced with the full support of the Schumacher family by Vanessa Nocker and Benjamin Seikel of Hamburg-based German language documentary specialists B 14 Film GmbH and written and directed by Germans Hanns-Bruno Kammertons, Vanessa Nocker and Michel Wech, does a fair job of ‘filling in the gaps’ of what I suppose you could call a typical Netflix doco watcher’s general knowledge.
There’s his start in the sport, in a kart at an outdoor go kart track run by his father Rolf, his precocious success in karts before celebrated German manager-to-the-stars Willi Weber took him under his wing and fully funded what turned out to be a winning German Formula 3 championship assault in 1990.
Schumacher also (infamously) won the Macau Formula 3 GP that year – albeit only after favourite Mika Hakkinen botched a ‘sure-thing’ pass on the German on the start/finish straight on the final lap of the second leg.
Both Willi Weber and Mikka Hakkinen make cameo appearances in the doco, as does former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and former Benetton F1 team boss Flavio Briatore, proof if ever it was needed, of the legacy Schumacher left on our sport at its ultimate level.
The death of Ayrton Senna is also – (IMHO) – rather mawkishly covered – why, I’m not quite sure. Certainly, Senna was ‘the man to beat’ at the time and the driver who was chasing him down when the Brazilian ace was killed after his Williams FW16 02 left the track at the high-speed Tamburello corner during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, was indeed Michael Schumacher.
Arguably of more importance to the Schumacher story, however, was that in this, the year he won his first World F1 championship, the precocious young German ace had already beaten Senna twice (in Brazil and Japan) as part of his early season winning streak of four races (Including the third one at San Marino), served a two-race ban for ignoring calls by race officials – culminating in a black flag – to pit to observe a stop-go penalty, and controversially chopped across championship title rival Damon Hill’s bows after himself running off the road while leading the final race of the season, the Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide. (Which you can watch here https://youtu.be/91JoW4mSiZo).
In my mind Damon Hill was the unsung hero in all this, stepping up to take the battle to Schumacher after his team leader (Ayrton Senna’s) tragic death, and ended up only losing out on the title to his younger German rival by a single point at the ill-fated final series round.
Hill, son of two-time British F1 world champion Graham Hill, was again the only driver to take the battle to Schumacher throughout 1995, though this time he well beaten, Schumacher winning 9 Grands Prix races to Hill’s 4, the final points washup seeing Schumacher earn his second F1 World Drivers’ championship on trot, this time with 102 points 33 more than season runner-up (again), Damon Hill.
Hill’s turn, however, to turn the tables on Schumacher once and for all came in 1996 , when – with the German hamstrung by an uncompetitive car since his move to Ferrari, the second-generation F1 driver winning eight races to Schumacher’s three to win the 1996 World Drivers Championship, his final score 97 points to title runner-up (and new Williams teammate) Jacques Villeneuve’s 78 and third placed Michael Schumacher’s 59.
It was Schumacher’s Ferrari years which are rightly considered his best, the German added five more driver’s championship titles between 2000 & 2004 to the two he won with Benetton in 1994 and 1995.
Yet, yet, yet there were still the odd ‘moment of madness’ like the ‘Adelaide-style’ move on Jacque Villeneuve for the world title the final round of the 1997 championship a Jerez n Spain.
Again, there was just one point in it, and with an ailing car and Villeneuve’s William’s fast approaching, Schumacher waited for the Williams driver to draw alongside, then literally turned hard right into him.
I can still remember the fallout from that particular move; made worse by Schumacher’s incredible initial assertion that it had been Villeneuve – who ‘drove into me!’
You of course, can decide for yourself here (https://youtu.be/nt-3KT6ktHU). Needless to say, it was Villeneuve who was able to continue and claim the F1 World Drivers championship for 1997 while Schumacher’s year ended in ignomy after beaching his Ferrari in the gravel trap.
Just a year later (1998) at a sodden Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps Schumacher was again in the wars, holding a 40 second race lead in the miserable conditions before running into the back of Scot David Coulthard’s McLaren and ripping a wheel off his Ferrari.
Meanwhile, in 1999, brake failure was blamed for a high-speed crash in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone which saw Schumacher break a leg, forcing him to miss six other GPs that year.
Of course, it was Schumacher and Ferrari’s unbreakable ‘golden run’ of F1 World Championship dominance from 2000 to 2004 most of us best remember Michael Schumacher for.
Each year he and his familiar crimson red Ferrari seemed to get better and better, and each year ‘Schui’ seemed to find another record to break.
All of which, of course, you can read on the Michael Schumacher’s Wikipedia’s page entry and all of which was – bravely chronicled – in the Netflix documentary.
One of the really good things about the doco was the sheer amount of – both analogue and digital – footage from which the directors have been able to stitch together a compelling historical narrative.
Once his F1 career has been dealt with, it is Michael’s wife Corinna who takes up the story of life post-Ferrari. There are plenty of vignette-style (still) photos cut into the doco showing Michael, Corinna and their two kids, Mick and Gina-Marie.
Both – bravely, I must say, faced up with their mother Corinna – to be interviewed about their famous father, and the sadness is there for all to see.
Yet, Corrina, apparently would not have a bar of putting Michael in front of a camera so that that the rest of us can decide for ourselves whether there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Which IMHO means that Schumacher is really only half the documentary it could have – indeed should have – been.
Actually, that’s unfair, because my wife and son – who were aware of the name, but not much else, both ‘really enjoyed’ it and ‘learned heaps’ about what I suppose you could call, the ‘business end’ of motor racing as it enters the second decade of the new millennium.
Speaking strictly personally here, however, I think Corinna, Michael’s wife is being a little bit too protective of her obviously beleaguered husband.
Sure, there might be the odd voyeuristic weirdo out there Corinna, but there must – literally – be millions of plain, simple old fans like my good self, who followed and supported your husband’s career through the good times and would be happy to return the favour – if only you would let us – through the bad.
A warts and all documentary would have been a good start. Sadly that opportunity has now been lost.
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