Michael Schumacher’s ‘struggle’ laid bare after tragic accident

A tragic accident that shocked F1 drivers and motorsport fans around the world had a profound impact on Michael Schumacher.

Before Michael Schumacher was the greatest driver of his generation – and possibly ever – he started out like everyone else, as the new kid on the block.

The F1 legend grew up idolising Ayrton Senna, a three-time world champion and one of the smoothest operators to ever grace a track, still revered to this day in racing circles around the globe.

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Just a handful of years before Schumacher was lining up on the grid alongside Senna, he had posters on his bedroom wall of the Brazilian superstar who won world titles in 1988, 1990 and 1991. He wasn’t alone.

“Everyone looked up to him (Senna),” former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone says in SCHUMACHER, the new Netflix documentary set to be released next week. “If you suddenly started in the same thing, you wanted to be him.”

From humble beginnings in Germany with his working class family, Schumacher graduated to the pinnacle of racing in the early 1990s and suddenly he wasn’t just admiring Senna from afar — he was fighting him for a place on the podium.

Schumacher enjoyed plenty of rivalries during his illustrious career but his early days were defined by his battles with Senna. One of their more memorable clashes came at the 1992 French Grand Prix during Schumacher’s first full season with Benetton, when the German came from behind on the hairpin bend and crashed into Senna, sending them both out of the race.

Senna confronted Schumacher afterwards, blaming the rookie for ruining his day. It wasn’t the last time the pair would clash.

As Benetton’s former technical director Ross Brawn says in SCHUMACHER: “I don’t think Michael set out to try and upset him, I think Michael was racing everyone in formula one the same way he’d raced everyone (previously), as he should have done.

“It caused some friction and Ayrton tried to put Michael in his place a few times on the track, which upset Michael. He didn’t think that was equally respectful. They were a bit fractious in that early period.”

Ex-Benetton boss Flavio Briatore adds: “At the time Michael was really a super driver. When he had the fight with Senna (in France), Senna smelled the guy was somebody. When you’re a lion, all the lions will feel it when the young lion is arriving, and you want to keep the territory.”

Senna celebrates another podium as Schumacher smiles in the background. (Photo by Julio Pereira/AFP)

In 1994, Benetton surprised everybody by emerging as a genuine title threat — in no small part thanks to Schumacher’s brilliance behind the wheel. At the San Marino GP that year, Senna was leading with Schumacher close behind in second when tragedy struck.

The Brazilian lost control of his car at the Tamburello corner and slammed into the barriers at more than 300km/h. The race was stopped, Senna was flown to hospital and later pronounced dead.

“The fact is that what he (Senna) was doing when he crashed when he went off the circuit, he was trying to stay ahead of Schumacher,” sports writer Richard Williams says in the documentary, which features insights from those who knew Schumacher best and never-before-seen archival footage, including interviews with the man himself.

In the doco, Schumacher reflects on that horrific day and the weeks that followed. He’d seen similar crashes before where drivers had walked away with just broken bones and bruises, so couldn’t wrap his head around what happened to Senna.

After Senna was taken to hospital, the race restarted and Schumacher went on to win. But there was no champagne on the podium, with everyone still waiting for news on the condition of one of the world’s most-loved drivers.

Mixed messages and differing details followed. Schumacher was told Senna was in a coma, then another person told him he was dead, then minutes later he was in a coma again. It was all changing until confirmation came of the worst news imaginable.

Schumacher (right) and everyone in F1 was heartbroken by Senna’s death. (AP-Photo/stf/Claudio Luffoli)

Senna was a legend when Schumacher arrived in F1. (Photo: AFP)

Schumacher’s ‘struggle’ laid bare: How accident affected F1 legend

Schumacher was a competitive beast. You don’t become an F1 driver – or win seven world championships for that matter – without a unique desire to be the best.

What this documentary reveals is just how bloody-minded Schumacher was to achieve greatness. He wasn’t just unbelievably skilful, he also possessed the kind of bordering-on-psychotic quest for perfection found in the likes of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.

But Senna’s death cracked that aggressive, do-anything-to-win mentality for the first time. He’d never second-guessed himself before, but being so close to tragedy forced Schumacher to confront his own mortality.

“The worst was really the two weeks after this, once I had to accept that he is dead. This was just something crazy,” a young Schumacher says in the documentary.

“At Silverstone (British GP) I went there and you suddenly saw many things with different eyes. I went around with a road car through the circuit and I just thought, ‘This is a point you could be dead, this is a point you could be dead’. I thought, ‘Crazy. You always tested here, you always raced here, but there are so many points you can crash and be immediately dead’. That’s the only thing I was thinking of.

“I didn’t know the situation, if I was going to be in the race car. I wasn’t sure, ‘Can I drive without thinking that or am I going to drive always thinking now you can be dead here, if you go off here it’s going to be bad?’ That was something very strange.”

The new Netflix documentary shines a light on Schumacher’s competitive instincts. (Photo by Getty Images)

Schumacher’s wife Corinna noticed a definite change in her husband, as he struggled to overcome the sense of fear he’d never experienced in a car before.

“We asked ourselves how it could have happened and Michael really asked himself if everyone was acting correctly,” she says. “It was really, really difficult. It was a real struggle for him.

“But he was a master at blocking things out. He was able to focus so intently on whatever he was doing that he blocked everything else out.

“So I think that mentally he’s very strong. It’s something he just has. Extremely strong. He still shows me everyday just how strong he actually is.”

Tragically, that wasn’t the only accident that rocked Schumacher. The 52-year-old hasn’t been seen in public since suffering a near-fatal brain injury while skiing in the French Alps in December 2013, and details of his condition remain scarce.

Corinna has promised to protect Schumacher’s privacy, and said in the documentary he is “different” as she broke down in tears discussing the incident in more depth than she ever has publicly.