Michael Schumacher Story
Michael Schumacher was born on January 3, 1969 in Hürth.
At the age of 4, Schumacher's father changed the pedestrian car to have a motorcycle engine.
At the age of 6, Schumacher won his first Karting Championship using a car built by his father with spare parts from other cars.
In order to continue to compete he needed a new and more powerful engine, but his parents had no economic power to acquire it. It was then that his entrepreneur decided to sponsor him.
However, there is another problem, the German rules only allowed a driver to have professional racing skills from the age of 14.
After learning about this Schumacher went to take the leave to Luxembourg at the age of 12.
He only managed to obtain his German license in 1983 after winning the German karts championship.
In the following years Schumacher competed in both German and European competitions.
In 1987, he abandoned his studies to work as a mechanic.
That year he also started his career at Formula Konig where he received 16,000 German macros per race.
In 1988, he competed in the Formula Ford and was runner-up.
After that he moved to Formula 3 (F3) and had a new manager (Willi Weeber).
In 1990 after winning the F3 he was selected for the Mercedes-Benz young driver program.
At this point he started to gain the fame of being a driver who did fast laps at crucial moments of the race and ended up earning the nickname "King of the Rain" due to his ability to drive in these atmospheric conditions.
In 1991, Schumacher made his Formula 1 debut for the Jordan team at the Belgian Grand Prix and was unable to finish the race due to mechanical problems.
That year, his best position was 5th in the Italian Grand Prix.
In 1992, he took the podium for the first time having won the 3rd place in the Mexico Grand Prix, won the Belgian Grand Prix and finished 3rd in the final classification of the championship.
At this point he already represented the Benetton team.
In 1993, Schumacher won the Portugal Grand Prix and was on 9 podiums but abandoned 7 of the 15 races in the championship and ended up finishing in 4th place at the end of the season with 52 points.
In 1994, Schumacher won the 1st title of F1 champion.
This title was very controversial since in the last race Schumacher when trying to return to the track after touching one of the side protections, he collided by hitting the car of the 2nd place, causing the two to have to abandon the probla due to the damage of the cars.
In 1995, Schumacher became the youngest driver ever to win a second championship after winning 9 out of 17 races.
In 1996, Schumacher was hired by Ferrari to try to win the team's first F1 title.
In his 1st season with Ferrari he finished in 3rd place where he won 3 races.
In 1997, the 2nd season for Ferrari, Schumacher was banned from the championship after he purposely tried to cause an accident with another car.
In 1998, he won 6 races and got 5 podiums but ended up failing to win the title of champion.
At the end of this season McLaren tried to sign Schumacher but to no avail.
In 1999, Schumacher helped Ferrari win the world title of drivers but failed to win the title of F1 champion due to an accident at the UK Grand Prix that left him out of 6 races to recover from his injury.
During the decade of 200 to 2010 it was the great phase of his career having broken several records.
In 2000, he won the title of F1 champion for the 3rd time, equaling the number of victories of Ayrton Senna.
In 2001, he won the title again (4th of his career) and broke the record of winning 9 races in a row.
In 2002, he won the 5th F1 title equaling the record for Juan Miguel Fangio and also set his own record by ganahr 11 races in one season and finishing all races on the podium.
In 2003, Schumacher won the 6th F1 title.
In 2004, he broke the record by winning the first 12 of the 13 races of the season and eventually winning his 7th title.
In 2005, Schumacher only won 1 race and finished the season in 3rd with 62 points.
In 2006, after Ayrton senna's accident he decided to put an end to his career.
In 2009, there was a chance to replace the injured Felipe Massa but several teams bet on his return.
In 2010, he returned to the tracks this time representing the Meredes-Benz team but he had a lot of difficulties in his return.
In 2011, he broke another record by becoming the oldest driver to lead a race.
In 2012, he returned to the podium having become the oldest driver to reach the podium at 43 years and 170 days and became the 1st driver in history to complete 300 Grand Prix in his career.
At the end of this season he announced that he would be retiring after Mercedes-Benz announced that he had hired Lewis Hamilton.
In total Schumacher participated in 308 races, won 7 F1 titles, won 91 races, climbed 155 times on the podium, scored 1566 points and 77 fastest laps.
It has undoubtedly left its mark on the history of F1 and motorsport.
Such a shame what happend to Schumi. Great sportsman, great career and great human
Interesting post and he definitely came up the hard way and why he was so good. Looking forward to seeing what his son can do this season and to see if he has what it takes.