EXCLUSIVE: What Michael Schumacher was really like: Friend shares memories of F1 legend

A friend of Michael Schumacher has shared his memories of the legendary Formula 1 driver.

Speaking to Crash.net via Casino Groups, former Red Bull head of operations Richard Hopkins, who became friends with Schumacher during the early part of his career when he was at Benetton, shared an insight into the F1 star’s character.

Schumacher won back-to-back world championships with Benetton in 1994 and 1995, before making the switch to Ferrari in 1996. After a few difficult seasons, the German helped transform the Italian team into serial winners, and clinched five consecutive drivers’ titles between 2000 and 2004.

Before the seven-time world champion hit the heights of his F1 fame, he met with Hopkins over coffee in his motorhome for occasional catch ups and chats about things both in and outside of motorsport.

“Great guy, you know, amazing driver. Good, decent human being,” Hopkins, who worked as a mechanic for McLaren at the time, recalled.

"Obviously did some things in Formula 1 which were controversial. When things like that happened, I always got a little bit angry about it. More inwardly than anything else - just frustrated because a lot of it was kind of out of character for him.

“He was extraordinarily driven, incredible work ethic. Very driven towards success and I suppose always travelled a fairly fine line between pushing for high performance, excellence, and winning and races and championships, and sometimes that hunger probably got the better of him and the red mist came down.

“Whether it was the Damon Hill incident in Adelaide, or whether it was the Jacques Villeneuve incident in Jerez, or whether it was the Monaco incident during qualifying where he pretty much parked the car, all those sorts of things just made you wonder.

“Because if you actually knew the guy, and everybody kind of knew the guy to be a decent guy outside of the car, and to see behaviours like that were just disappointing.  In some ways it became in character but out of character, if that makes any sense.”

A misunderstood character

Despite his controversial moments, Schumacher’s character was often misunderstood, Hopkins reckons.

“I think as success grew, certainly his media-facing, public-facing persona probably changed a bit,” Hopkins explained. “Michael at home with Corinna was Michael. Everybody who knew him well, Michael was still Michael.

“But I think whether it be a race win, or a controversial incident, or him not finishing as high as everybody expected him to, put him in that public spotlight which maybe his ability to manage those situations weren't as good as what they could have been.

“Maybe it's a journalist asking him the wrong question and the way he kind of lit up and how he reacted and dealt with those situations started building that sort of opinion people had of him, but that wasn't Michael.

"That was Michael - it's what we saw, but it wasn't necessarily Michael Schumacher - and that's why the people who really knew him, when you saw those sorts of things, everybody rolled their eyes and this is the vast majority of the pit lane. This isn't just his close circle.

“Of course he ran up the back of David Coulthard, which I remember quite fondly, when Michael ran down the pit lane and wanted to go for David. But he’s not the only driver to have done that. There's lots of drivers who have done that kind of thing.

"He saw the mist quite a bit and probably could have handled the media better and maybe people who only saw that side of Michael built out this character, but he wasn't that.”

Always destined for greatness

According to Hopkins, it was always clear that Schumacher would be destined for greatness, describing him as a “wonder kid”.

“You've got to see what he was doing in sports cars before he got into Formula 1 and how he appeared in the Jordan for that one race,” he explained. “He was the wonder kid, he was the one in a million that comes around, straight away, instantly quick, not phased.”

Hopkins drew parallels between Schumacher and four-time world champion Max Verstappen, who has recently competed in several GT endurance races on top of his F1 commitments.

“This is where there's probably a little bit of Michael in Max, in as far as, I think Michael could have driven anything,” he continued.  “Michael was just an incredible talent. We say he could have driven a milk float fast, and this is what Max demonstrates.

“I'm not sure if all the youngsters in Formula 1 have that ability to be able to, like the Jim Clarks did many years ago, and the Sterling Mosses, one week they're in a Lotus Cortina, the next minute they're in Germany racing Formula Two, the next they're over in the States doing an Indy race and whatever. I don't know if a lot of the drivers have that same flexibility and ability, or desire.

“I mean, good on Max for doing what Max is doing and putting himself out there. Some Formula 1 drivers have tried rally cars, and invariably not that successfully. So to have the balls to do it is quite brave. But maybe with that bravery to do that, you've got that talent anyway, maybe the two come together anyway, and the ones who don't do it aren't the brave ones.

“I think Michael was one of those exceptional talents that was just bloody quick, was just bloody fast and bloody determined.” 

Schumacher suffered severe head injuries in a skiing accident in December 2013 and has not been seen in public since.