People
Seven-time Formula One World Champion; Ferrari consultant and test driver who helped develop the 430 Scuderia
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The record
German former racing driver who won seven Formula One World Championships, five with Ferrari. After his first retirement he served Ferrari as a consultant and test driver and helped to develop the 430 Scuderia, then raced for Mercedes GP Petronas from 2010 to 2012. His family has kept his condition private since a skiing accident in December 2013.
Born in Hürth-Hermülheim on 3 January 1969, Schumacher began karting at four at Kerpen, where his father ran the track. He was German junior kart champion in 1984 and 1985 and German and European kart champion in 1987. In 1988 he won nine of ten Formula König races and the title, then signed with Willi Weber's WTS Formula 3 team.
In 1990 he won the German Formula 3 championship with WTS and the Macau Grand Prix. Jochen Neerpasch signed him as a Mercedes Junior. He contested three Group C World Sportscar Championship races for Sauber-Mercedes, winning in Mexico with Jochen Mass, and started every World Sportscar Championship race in 1991. At Spa he qualified seventh on his Formula One debut for Jordan before a clutch failure ended the race; Benetton then hired him.
With Benetton, Schumacher won at Spa in 1992 and took the 1994 and 1995 drivers' championships, becoming Germany's first Formula One world champion. He joined Ferrari in 1996. A broken leg at Silverstone disrupted his 1999 season, but he won Ferrari's first drivers' title since 1979 in 2000, followed by four more through 2004. He won thirteen of eighteen races in 2004, while Ferrari won six straight constructors' titles from 1999 to 2004.
After winning the 2006 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Schumacher announced he would retire at the end of the season; he finished second in the championship to Fernando Alonso. Mercedes-Benz records that he was a Ferrari consultant and test driver from 2007 to 2009. At the 430 Scuderia's Frankfurt launch on 11 September 2007, Autocar reported that he had helped to develop the car and tweak its manettino.
In 2010 he returned with Mercedes GP Petronas as Nico Rosberg's team-mate. His best result of the comeback was third at Valencia in 2012. After his contract was not renewed he announced his final retirement that October, finishing thirteenth in the standings. A skiing accident in December 2013 ended his public life; his family has kept his condition private.
Autocar reported that Schumacher helped to tweak the 430 Scuderia's manettino. Ferrari called it a Racing manettino: the Ice setting was dropped for CT, which cut traction control but left stability control on, and a separate centre-console button now set the dampers.
Ferrari wrote that, at the wheel of the 430 Scuderia on the old Nürburgring, Schumacher made continuous, methodical adjustments to gearchange timing, traction, suspension compliance and stability. The factory said the model took that sensitivity through its development.
The stations
The house
Credited through Ferrari.
In the register
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In their words
“I have decided to retire from Formula 1 at the end of the season, although I am still able to compete with the best drivers of the world.”
Michael Schumacher · Official website, 2012 retirement statement
