Michael Schumacher, the most celebrated driver in Ferrari’s history, once shared some advice for anyone wearing the team’s red overalls: don’t blame the team when things go wrong.
When Schumacher joined Ferrari in 1996, the team was struggling. But it didn’t take long for his influence to be felt. Over the next several years, he helped build a foundation that would lead to one of the most dominant eras in F1 history.
Few partnerships have matched what Schumacher and Ferrari accomplished together. Between 2000 and 2004, he won five consecutive drivers’ titles — a run of success that set new standards across motorsport.
Since then, though, championships have been hard to come by. Kimi Raikkonen’s title win in 2007 remains the only drivers’ crown Ferrari has celebrated since Schumacher’s time with the team.
Michael Schumacher addressed complaints from Ferrari drivers in a 2013 interview
In a 2013 interview with the BBC, a year after his final retirement from Formula 1, Michael Schumacher was asked about Fernando Alonso’s public criticism of Ferrari as Sebastian Vettel began to pull away in the championship race.
The comments came before the Italian Grand Prix that season, with Alonso trailing Vettel by 46 points at the time. Vettel eventually finished the year with a commanding 155-point lead over Alonso.
In the build-up to Ferrari’s home race, Alonso had criticised his engineers for not giving him what he needed to challenge for his third F1 title. When asked if he agreed with Alonso’s remarks, Schumacher responded:
“If you’re part of the team, then you’re partly responsible for what you have. I don’t think in my last three years I ever complained against the team because those guys work their nuts off to make the best possible car.
“It does take time and sometimes it takes a bit longer and sometimes it doesn’t happen at all. But still, you belong to that family. You’ve got to do it together so you win and lose together.”
Michael Schumacher admitted he felt ‘guilty’ about breaking Juan Manuel Fangio’s F1 Title record
When Michael Schumacher secured his penultimate Formula 1 world championship with Ferrari in 2003, he moved into uncharted territory by becoming the first driver to hold six drivers’ titles to his name.
He usurped Juan Manuel Fangio’s nearly 50-year-old record of five championships, and the F1 legend revealed that he felt ‘guilty’ during his interview with Lee McKenzie.
Schumacher had previously spoken about Vettel, saying after the former Red Bull driver’s third title that he could easily reach seven championships one day.
The German then added: “It was different, obviously, with Fangio and myself because you cannot compare his five titles to the seven that I have achieved.
“I feel a bit guilty to have broken those kinds of records because I don’t think that I broke them, I just set my own benchmark, and they did their benchmarks.”
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