Michael Schumacher

Photos

2004 Monaco Grand Prix – Michael in the Ferrari at Monaco Grand Prix.
(Photo James Penrose)

2004 Silverstone test – We had a new type of HANS® coming into use in mid 2004 and Michael tried this one at the Silverstone F1 test.
(Photo James Penrose)

1996 – Silverstone test – Two photos of my son Sean with Michael, typical of him to be kind to family of those who he’s worked with.
(Photo James Penrose)

Article

I’ve known Michael for many years, though I never worked directly with him until the HANS®. But in the years I worked for Arai I looked after Johnny Herbert’s Arai helmets when he was teammate to Michael at Benetton. So often in the back of the truck working on Johnny’s helmets we’d be joking with Michael – Johnny is a pretty capable joker!

There were times when the late night partying of the Bell rep at the time got the better of him and I ended up sorting Michael’s Bell’s as well as Johnnie’s Arai helmets – due to the reps inevitable late arrival! It was customary in those days to help each other out even though working in competition. It simply wasn’t an option to let a competitor go out on track with a badly set up helmet, safety shouldn’t be compromised by a hangover! Hence the comment: ” P.S. Thanks for the nice Bell helmets!”

In 2003 we had the HANS® starting properly in F1 and it was Michael who was one of the catalysts for convincing the other drivers (at that early season test where I had to convince the drivers that the HANS® was okay and wearable). His teammate Rubens Barrichello had made a big thing out of not wanting to use it. In the end it worked fine, but Michael always wants to have a joke… “How much longer do I have to use it!”

The guy is a hard worker – in the times I did work on safety with Ferrari he’d be working from 07.00 and still working at 23.00, there aren’t so many others in F1 who work like that among the drivers.

My ex-wife Yumi, worked with Michael at Benetton (after moving there from McLaren), so British GPs were very much family visit times for all based in the UK, as you can imagine with both parents travelling in F1 it is pretty hard for a child and Michael went out of his way to make our son Sean welcome when he came to a race.