Michael Schumacher had issues adapting to new situations after his comeback to Formula 1, his former teammate Nico Rosberg has said.
The 2016 world champion argued Schumacher’s struggle to adapt was the reason behind his decline in performance compared with his peak at Mercedes.
Schumacher returned to F1 in 2010 after an initial retirement in 2006, having already achieved seven world championships in the sport. He spent three seasons at the new Mercedes team partnering Rosberg, during which he struggled to get results and clinched just one podium. He retired from F1 for a final time in 2012.
Schumacher was “worse” at adapting following F1 peak
Speaking recently on the High Performance Podcast, Rosberg was questioned about some ‘uncharacteristic’ moments from Schumacher during his time at Mercedes, including his crash with Bruno Senna at the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix.
“I know exactly what that was,” said Rosberg.
“Just that he struggled, you know, a race driver’s skill is the speed of adapting. We are super fast to adapt to new situations, new grip levels, because every lap is different in our world.
“That was the area where Michael, the only area where you could see a little bit that he was not at his best anymore – his ability to adapt to some things.
“The best example was with DRS. He had never in his career had DRS.
“You suddenly go 15 kilometres per hour quicker, which means that you get to that next corner in a way that you never usually get there, because you’re suddenly 15 kilometres quicker, in a race, only when you’re overtaking someone.
“So he’s doing the race, getting to that corner always the same, and then suddenly he comes up to Bruno Senna, and hits the DRS, and so his brain failed to remind him that this is a new situation, he’s going to get to the same braking zone that he’s come to the last 20 laps with 15 kilometres more speed, so you have to brake in a much earlier spot, because if you break in the same spot, you’re off.
“He brakes in the same spot, so he took out Bruno Senna in front of him and had a massive crash. That was the only little thing that he was worse at, I think, than in his peak.”
Rosberg reveals Schumacher ‘mind games’
Rosberg also detailed the way that Schumacher would attempt to throw him off mentally, describing him as a “mental warrior” who “lives and breathes destroying his teammate mentally”.
“So whether it’s we arrive at the track and there’s only one parking place, […] one for each driver, there’s the team bosses also, and Michael would park his car just slightly across into my parking spot, so two wheels just across the white line in a way that I cannot fit anymore,” he said.
“I would scratch the cars if I would try. So [that] stresses me out, obviously, because I’m late for the meeting. You always arrive one minute to go, engineering meeting, it’s the most horrible thing to come a minute late when everybody, even the 50 people at the factory, everybody’s online, and it’s, ‘Sorry, we’re just waiting on Nico to arrive.’ Horrible.
“So he parks the car across, so I’m stuck because I cannot leave it in the middle of the road. And it’s just all day long.”
Rosberg describes “stressful” moments with teammate
“Monaco qualifying, he locks himself in the only toilet that we had in the garage. There’s only one, and the last thing you do as a driver is you always go to the bathroom before getting in the car, and he locks himself in, looking at his watch. The time is ticking, and he knows that it’s the most horrible thing jumping in a race car when you’re stressed.
“Because you need to adjust your seat belts, and there’s these crotch straps at the bottom that are high risk, you need to take your time to position them very carefully and nicely, because the worst that can happen is if something shifts out of place whilst you’re out on the race track. There’s nothing you can do about it. Every driver has experienced this.
“It’s so painful, and because when you’re braking, you slide down into the crotch, and if something’s not right in position, you have an hour to go, and you’re out on the racetrack, and you know you can’t do anything about it, that’s horrible. So, you don’t want to jump in the car stressed.
“He’s in the bathroom, locks the door. I’m knocking on the door, and I don’t know who’s in there, because no one’s talking. ‘Come out, come out, come out, please. I need to go.’
“He knows, okay, three minutes to go, two minutes to go, and by then I had to find a bucket in the back of the garage. So the mechanics are working around me, and I’m peeing in a bucket, shaking, stressed, and this is like all day long. He loved it.”
Asked if he would have ever asked Schumacher to stop the games, Rosberg said he was “too young”, but would not hesitate now.
Rosberg overshadowed by F1 icon Schumacher at Mercedes
He continued: “In three years of being teammates, [Schumacher] did not mention my name once. In three years of sitting across the table in engineering meetings, I did not exist.”
Rosberg went on to describe how Williams team boss James Vowles, then Mercedes’ chief of strategy, seemed “consumed” by Schumacher in the team’s engineering meetings, even though Rosberg was outperforming the seven-time world champion.
“I was the guy getting more points for the team; I was in front in the championship,” he said.
“I beat Michael most of the time, which was very important to my career. Yes, he wasn’t at the peak of his powers anymore, because he had retired and come back. Nevertheless, it was important for me to stay ahead anyway.
“So then after that I went to James Vowles, and I said, ‘James, please, I deserve that you give me at least 50 per cent of your attention in such strategy meetings, especially then when you’re discussing my strategy, also.’
“I’m not sure if I was brave enough to say that that hurt me, probably not. But I must have said it didn’t feel nice to me.
“Then James very kindly did pay attention next time, and did address me appropriately. So that was a very important example of progress in that sense.”
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