Formula 1 continues to pay tribute to Michael Schumacher, seven-time world champion, retired from public life since the ski accident he suffered this Tuesday seven years ago and which for Ferrari remains the eternal idol.
“Michael is always in my thoughts. But I have absolute respect for his family’s decision,” says the former head of the Italian team, Luca di Montezemolo, in this Tuesday’s edition of the popular newspaper ‘Bild’.
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It alludes with this to the strict norm of the discretion imposed by the Schumacher about the situation of the ex-pilot in his chalet in Gland (Switzerland).
He has just received visits, apart from those occasionally made by the head of the FIA and former sporting director at Ferrari, Jean Todt, who has sometimes referred to these encounters, without giving details of their condition.
Montezemolo led Ferrari from 1991 to 2014, a period when the Italian team won up to 19 world titles. -among those received by its pilots Niki Lauda, Kimi Räikkönen or Schumacher, or as a builder-.
“The times with Michael were special,” he says, adding that he often prays for him, even though he has not visited him since the accident in Méribel, in the French Alps. The Schumacher family jealously guards the rule of discretion. Last weekend, the same newspaper, the most read in Germany, included an interview with the ex-driver’s son, Mick, who is preparing to debut in Formula 1.
“I feel good, I don’t mind the question or the comparisons,” explain 21-year-old Mick about the inevitable question about Michael.
“My father is the greatest for me. Why would I distance myself from him?”, Added the son of the idol, who will debut with the American team Haas at the Melbourne Grand Prix on March 21. Michael Schumacher is still for many the “Kaiser”, the emperor, of Formula 1.
His record of seven world titles – in 1994 and 1995 with Bennetton and then the five he won with Ferrari, from 2000 to 2004 – was matched by Britain’s Lewis Hamilton this season.
But German is still identified with the title of emperor, perhaps by idiomatic affinity. It has been seven years since the accident on December 29, 2013 at this winter resort in the French Alps. In those days he had been retired from competition for several years.
The rider who had overcome so many accidents on the circuits was on the verge of death on a ski slope, his other passion for sports. His admission to a clinic in Grenoble, with cranioencephalic polytrauma, unfolded a media circus that tested the patience of medical center officials and the ability to manage the moods in a family emotionally on the edge.
His wife, Corinna, as well as the pilot’s former manager, Sabine Kehm, were harassed by the media at every entrance or exit from the center. There were frustrated attempts to steal images of the victim and other examples of journalistic voracity. Michael awoke from the induced coma in which he had been admitted six months after the accident.
From the Grenoble clinic he was transferred to a rehabilitation center in Lausanne (Switzerland) and, from here, to Gland’s chalet, duly conditioned by his care, among teams of doctors, auxiliaries and physiotherapists. Seven years later, Corinna, who married Michael in 1995 and is the mother of her two children — Gina Maria and Mick — she continues to perform at charities and other events.
The last of these, the FIA gala, in December, at which Hamilton was proclaimed pilot of the year, while Michael’s wife received an honorary award, another, in the name of her husband. Kehm continues to manage relations with the media and the official accounts of the “kaiser” on social media; Corinna is smiling and serene here where she is claimed.
Neither, together nor separately, reveal more than they deem convenient. Michael’s state of health is a private matter. Mick’s upcoming debut has shifted his attention a bit to the theoretical successor on Michael’s direct-line circuits. It was difficult for the idol’s son to impose his own style. Her best advisor is, as she explained to “Bild”, her mother. Someone who has already come a long way in never falling into rudeness and at the same time preserving himself from indiscretions.
EFE