people are asking these days is increasingly: How is it, in fact the Schumacher? There is no answer to that. No official. This is a, five years after his serious accident. Since then, he no more stepped in appearance. And so it will be this Thursday, when he is 50 years old. No greeting, no appearance. So it could have come without the misfortune on the ski slope.

Anno Hecker

editor responsible for sports.

F. A. Z.

Schumacher has been during his career, prefer to other and other do the talking. Figures, Data, Facts, Tangible: 91/7. These are his numbers. 91 winning formula 1 races, seven world titles as a driver. He is the record man. With the results for eternity. So many thought that, even from the innermost circle of Motorsports. His Fans like to keep the results as trappings for a sort of immortality. But Lewis Hamilton comes to a close, the five-time Champion could have overtaken Schumacher in three years. And then? What would we be? The core of his story. She is as lively as it is infinite.

The Schumacher Story is made up of many wondrous Details. Each individual provides material for amazing stories, for all forms of drama. As a Boy of the go-kart track, in addition to swishes in the gravel pit in the world? This is unimaginable in the small Rennfamilie on the edge of the brown coal mine. “Dä Mischael in also?” Summer vacation the student spends not on the sea, but as a helper of the father at the kart rental. Later, portraits of prevented football player (“Always a replacement Bank line I wanted. not”), the highway from Shanghai to the race track in front of the gates of the metropolis

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Germany has awakened the passion for formula 1. Tracks overrun, kart clubs shoot like mushrooms from the ground, Chancellor Kohl leaves Green and helps the Nürburgring to make a Comeback as a Grand Prix circuit, Ferrari no longer want to let go of “Michele”. The formula 1 tries to the series winner, with the Change of the allocation of points slow. There is hardly a greater compliment. From the gravel pit in orbit: How did he do that?

Schumacher once said of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he was not a good student. Rarely, the Rhine country was so fooled by Numbers, called grades. In the life out there in the gravel pit, down there on the asphalt strip, he was the best student of his (Motorsport)class. Talent they all had, the Frentzens of this world, the world champion Hill, or Villeneuve, Hakkinen, two-time Champion, all of the super fast on-the-go, as brother Ralf. But none of them understood it, his gift, the feeling of driving, the reaction speed, the memory, to associate the concentration is so intense and so long with the ever-changing demands of formula 1. Like a red thread, a ability that combines everything to be a life Schumacher: consistently.

each takes on for the new year. Every Morning, the same cereal, always on the Fitness work, never trust the recent success is the guarantee for the next. On new year’s morning, the Fail begins. Schumacher’s work is a discipline for decades, literally. In the preliminary discussion and have an Interview on the subject of Talent in October 2013 at the karting track of Genk, he tells of a novelty. The night before, he had arrived and wanted to check the tuning of the Karts. Everything is already done, have him call a mechanic. “Since I’ve turned on your heels,” said Schumacher, laughing, “for the first Time in my life.”