Skip navigation.

Formula 1

Secret Diary of Michael Schumacher: Part 18

Tuesday February 11 2003

Part Achtzehn

Part AchtzehnHello to my sincerely adoring tifosis!

Well, you have seen the pictures and know how we feel about our beautiful new car. It is just the most beautiful picture. I told Rory that it would be a shame to race it, we should be putting a frame around it and placing it on the wall of an important art gallery.

In fact the launch was slightly too much as Rubens and I competed for Girl Guide points with Rory as to who could deliver the best compliment.
I said, "I think we have made a wonderful car and I hope that it will be fast. I'm in love with the car, the team and the fans."
And then Rubens is going way beyond the top saying, "It is so beautiful and gorgeous..."

I told Rory it was beautiful first and now Rubens is already trying to compete me in saying how fantastic the car is, beyond the description I am already giving to it.

It is almost causing me problems with Corinna too and tying me up in complicated knots, because I said, "If it was a woman, it would be Claudia Schiffer."
And my lieblings doughnut asked me, 'Why wouldn't it be me...?'
To which I am having to say very quickly, "Oh, they have not yet designed a car beautiful enough to be compared to you."
(All those years working with Eddie Irvine have definitely helped!)
I think I got away with my slip-up because later on we had Tuesday Night Vroom Vroom (always the second Tuesday of each calendar month, it is the most efficient system).

At the launch it was time to meet up with Felipe Massa again. I have to admit to you, though Jean is a very great friend and we are closer than two buttocks in tight lederhosen, it is not a decision I am throwing my arms open for.

I do not like the way the team has used its elbow on Luciano Burti. We all thought 'Boy Blunder', as I have nicknamed him, was going off to drive for Jordan. But now he is turning up in Ferrari overalls, looking pleased with himself, like a fence-crasher who did not think he would be allowed into the party. I saw Luciano in January and he was relieved to be having another season with the Scuderia and now he is gone.
Massa is just like the boy at school you wanted to kick during break time. When you are talking to him he looks sideways as though he has better thing to do.

Part of the whole process of the launching day is giving interviews to journalists and they are all fighting like frogs trying to get on the lily pad for their Schumi exclusives. Sabine, Stefania and Luca have a tough time on this day manipulating the egos of the frogs who all want to jump over each other to be top frog in the line of frogs in the pond.
I am having a big joke on their expenses, though, by saying exactly the same answers to all of them.

One answer I am making is that I was sorry to see the end of driver aids which I think is a mistake on safety issues. This, I can see, is a surprise to them, coming from 'Der Schumster', 'Der Regenmeister', but it is only for my protection that I am administering these remarks. Yes, I am a master in the rain, of course. This is well known. It's all the other drivers hitting me I am worried about.

Afterwards Nigel Stepney, in a joking face, said to me 'you have a great big Jessie'. How does he know?

Sometimes the English sense of humour from Nigel and Ross is going straight past my ears. They are on a different frequency wavelength.
Ross told me that the FIA are going to install a spy in the cockpit.
I replied back immediately with:
"But there will be no room for him," which I thought was a very funny remark. Ralf and Heinz-Harald would definitely have laughed.
Ross did not smile. He looked at me with a serious, deep pan face.
"It's a her," he said quietly.

If only comedy was as easy as driving in the rain.


<< Part 17  |  Secret Diary of Michael Schumacher  |  Part 19 >>


Disclaimer: I am not the author, but have archived these entries for posterity as I felt that they were so well written by "Michael Schumacher" for Planet-F1 (who have removed almost all of the originals from their website).