For many in the racing world, Michael Schumacher’s name is still synonymous with greatness.
The German driver was a champion on the F1 circuits, racking up 91 wins during his heyday in the 1990s. When he retired in 2006, he held the record for the most wins, pole positions and podium finishes, and still maintains the record for the most fastest laps (77).
But that all came to a crashing halt in 2013, when he had a life-changing brain accident. Since then, Schumacher never been seen in public, and little is known about his health.
However, with reports that he was seen for the first time in a decade at his daughter’s wedding, he may be ready to step back into the spotlight.
Here’s everything we know about the racing driver.
Who is Michael Schumacher?
Born in the West German town of Hürth on January 3, 1969, Schumacher came from a working-class family that nurtured his talent. His father, Rolf, was a bricklayer who later ran the local kart track, and modified his son’s pedal kart at the age of four, adding a diesel engine.
Schumacher promptly crashed it into a lamppost, after which his father enrolled him as the youngest member of the karting club in neighbouring Kerpen-Horrem.
Rolf built him a kart from spare parts (as well as taking on two jobs to help hs son pursue his dreams), and at the age of six, Schumacher won his first club championship.
His star soon stared to rise – and with it, his ambition. German regulations forbade kart drivers from getting their licence under the age of 14; to get around it, Schumacher went to Luxembourg and got his at the age of 12, then went onto win the German Junior Kart Championship. A year later, he got his German kart licence.
By 1987, he was the German and European kart champion, and dropped out of school to work as a mechanic. Shortly after, he pivoted to racing cars: in 1989, he signed onto the WTS Formula Three team, before joining the Mercedes-Benz junior racing programme in 1990.
Schumacher the racing driver
On the track, Schumacher quickly established himself as a force to be reckoned with.
Racing for Jordan-Ford, Benetton and eventually Ferrari, he started racking up win after win from 1990 onwards. In 1992, he finished three points ahead of renowned racing driver Ayrton Senna, who told a friend he thought the German was "the next big threat, way ahead of all the other drivers around at the time.”
He became known for his speed and ability to push his car to the very limit, often snatching victory at the last second through a daring fast lap.
He was also committed to improving his racing by any means necessary, especially fitness. In 2004, Slate magazine called him "the most dominant athlete in the world", thanks to being "quicker, stronger, and fitter than the competition by outworking them in the weight room.” This even extended to training his neck muscles via a four-hour daily routine, in order withstand the G-forces he was subjected to in the cockpit.
The flexibility and adaptability of the German’s driving style paired with a cool head under pressure. Over the course of his career, he earned the nickname “Regenkonig” or the Rain King, for winning 17 out of 30 races he contested in wet conditions.
Giancarlo Fisichella told La Gazzetta dello Sport in 2023 that his former rival “didn’t even seem to have sweated” in races, adding that he “rewrote the history of Formula One.”
Fellow F1 drivers agreed: drivers who followed Schumacher onto the track, such as Sebastian Vettel, cite Schumacher as a key inspiration for them (Vettel, who retired in 2022, called him an “idol”), while Austrian Niki Lauda called him “the greatest. Nobody will ever beat him, as long as we are alive.”
After a star-studded career, Schumacher eventually retired for good in 2012. He did so as the fifth-highest earning athlete of all time, winner of multiple awards – including a Lifetime Achievement Award presented by Pelé – and a multiple record holder, some of which remain unbeaten to this day.
The accident
In 2013, Schumacher was skiing in the French alps when he fell and hit his head on a rock. Schumacher was an experienced skier, but hit an exposed rock as he descended the mountain and flew through the air, hitting another rock 10 metres away and cracking his helmet.
The right side of his head sustained severe damage – so severe that medics said he would have died had he not been wearing protective headgear. He was airlifted to hospital, where he underwent two operations and was put in a medically-induced coma for seven months.
By April 2014, he was showing moments of consciousness, and was brought out of the coma. In November 2014, he was reportedly “paralysed and in a wheelchair”, and unable to speak, but Schumacher’s manager Sabine Kehm told press the following year that he was slowly improving: "I can only say again: There are signs that give us encouragement," she said.
Not much else is known. In 2023, his former Ferrari manager, Jean Todt, told French daily L’Equipe that "Michael is here, so I don’t miss him.
"[But he] is simply not the Michael he used to be. He is different and is wonderfully guided by his wife and children who protect him. His life is different now and I have the privilege of sharing moments with him. That’s all there is to say. Unfortunately, fate struck him ten years ago. He is no longer the Michael we knew in Formula One."
Since the accident, the German been living at his home in Lake Geneva, and his wife Corinna is fiercely protective of his privacy. Reportedly, only three family members and a team of medics are regularly in contact with Schumacher, who is said to require round-the-clock care.
“‘We’re together. We live together at home. We do therapy,” she said in a 2021 Netflix documentary. “We do everything we can to make Michael better and to make him comfortable. And to simply make him feel our family, our bond.”
The latest
Despite the near-total silence on Schumacher’s condition, after 11 years, it was reported that the racing driver had attended his first public event.
This was the wedding of his 27-year-old daughter Gina to Iain Bethke, at the family’s villa in Majorca. Guests were asked to leave their phones at the door, and Majorcan news site Ultima Hora said the ceremony lasted around half an hour, with no media invited.
There could be another appearance on the cards, too: Schumacher’s 25-year-old son Mick got engaged this week to long-time girlfriend Laila Hasanovic.
Mick talked in 2017 about his dad being an “idol” and “role model”, and has followed in his footsteps by also pursuing a career in racing. With a wedding to attend, perhaps we’ll be seeing more from Schumacher himself in future.
