Formula 1
Secret Diary of Michael Schumacher: Part 25
Thursday July 10 2003
Part Funf Und Zwanzig
Hello my air honkingly noisy tifosi chums. Are you saving up your big blasts for the Hockenheim..?
It is true to say we are not in the best shapings for our Championships right now with Williams breathing up our necks and Ralf looming largest in my Championship rear view mirror.
People say to me, you must be pleased to have a rival with your own surname and to be keeping the title 'in the family', so to speaking, which is not right in the slightest bit. I want Ralf to win the Championship in 2005 when I have retired, but this early is way too early.
And up until now I could rely on my manager being 100% behind me in the title showdown.
Now, he is saying I don't mind who wins. It's not a good feeling to lose 50% of Willi just like that. When Ralf wins he is in the Williams garage celebrating not giving me a friendly bad luck pat on the back.
Ever since Monaco it has been "Ralf this" and "Ralf that" and "Ralf we must talk to this magazine" and "Ralf we must talk to this German TV company."
And of course with Ralf's success we all know who is turning up to squeeze her bones into the main picture, yes, The Crow. The publicity-loving Crow is coming to all the races now and sitting in the garage like a great big bird of pray waiting for its dinner.
This would be easier to accept if we had a chance to improve but I am so gloomy that Bridgestone have lost the plot and will not catch up the tyre race this season.
People have noticed a certain change in my attitude. When Peter Windsor asks his questions after the race in the official FIA interviews I am giving him just the smallest amount of words.
Sabine rolled me onto a course which was the title, Media Management. She had noticed my ability to give too long answers to questions with record-breaking sentences of almost eighty, and in some cases ninety words, filled with many diversions and perhaps giving too much information away to the pack of hyenas waiting to pounce at any moment on the smallest remark in the wrong place.
So now when I am asked a question I am "Mr. One Sentence". People have come to me and said that it looks like I have the dismissive attitude of an Irvine with my one sentence and my throwing back the question onto the questioners, but that is their problem.
Apart from the problem with our tyres now we are having crazy accidents in the pitlane. I was not happy to be involved in a crash with Mark Webber in France in the most stupid of circumstances. Afterwards Webber is coming up to me and saying, "Well, mate, looks like your no claims bonus just wint out the window."
I have no idea what the meaning of this is. I am on $26m, I don't ever claim any more as a bonus.
It is a shame that Niki Lauda left Jaguar because he was the big personality behind the team. Now it is like the team is run by a bunch of computer nerds. They are not a big cat, they are in fact just small pussies.
And if all that is happening to me was not bad enough, in the last few races Rubens is driving like his grandmother. If this is going to continue I will have to ask the whiney bloke with a beard who is always selling copies of the Big Issue outside the paddock gates if he will do a swap with Rubens for Jos Verstappen.
<< Part 24 | Secret Diary of Michael Schumacher | Part 27 >>
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).
