Michael Schumacher’s former manager takes aim at legend’s ‘stupidest decision’

Michael Schumacher is Formula 1’s greatest ever driver but one decision threatened the seven-time champion’s incredible legacy.

When Michael Schumacher retired from Formula 1, he was untouchable as the greatest champion in the sport’s history.

Five straight championships and seven all up, Schumacher was in a class of his own.

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In his 250 races between 1988 and 2006, Schumacher had 68 pole positions, 154 podiums and an astonishing 91 wins.

Lewis Hamilton, who has won five of the past six world championships, is preparing to go after his seventh title overall in 2020. By way of comparison to Schumacher, the Brit has also had 250 starts for 151 podiums, 84 wins and 88 pole positions.

Schumacher’s record was a thing of beauty — until he came back in 2010 for a three-year deal with Mercedes.

Michael Schumacher after his final race at the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix.

In his final 58 races over those three years, Schumacher claimed just one more podium, finishing third behind Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso at the 2012 European Grand Prix, where he became the oldest driver to make a podium since Jack Brabham at the 1970 Grand Prix at the age of 43.

While the final chapter of his career left some of his records under pressure from a driver such as Hamilton, Schumacher’s former manager Willi Weber has admitted he tried to talk Schumacher out of a return in 2010.

“Let’s say, this was, even in hindsight, the stupidest thing he could do,” Weber told Motorsport-Total.com.

“He told me he was bored, he had to drive. Then I say, ‘Michael, what do you want? You can only lose. You can’t win anymore. You won everything. You are the best racer in the world. You stand on the highest pedestal that exists. You can only lose now’.

“But, he just didn’t want to hear it.”

Weber said he wasn’t ready for the rigours of another F1 season but Schumacher did what he wanted to do.

It ended the pair’s professional relationship and Weber admitted he took no satisfaction in Schumacher being unable to return to the heights he scaled earlier in his career.

Mercedes team members Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg (L) and Nick Heidfeld (C) in 2010.

Even though Schumacher’s greatness on the track was somewhat dented by his comeback, he’s still the frontrunner when it comes to the greatest driver of all time.

But in April, F1 legend and former team owner Eddie Jordan said that Hamilton could overtake Schumacher as the GOAT, saying the German let “himself down in one area for me”.

“That one area was that in every contract, whether I signed with (Eddie) Irvine or (Rubens) Barrichello or whoever they were – there was a clause there that they always had to play second-fiddle to Michael Schumacher,” Jordan said.

Rarely sighted since Schumacher’s head injury in 2013 during a skiing accident the French Alps, the German legend’s family has been notoriously private about his condition.

While Weber said the pair continued to see each other even after they’d split professionally, he revealed late last year that his requests to visit Schumacher had been denied by the family.