An interview with Michael Schumacher – given less than two months before he suffered life changing head injuries in a skiing accident in 2013 – has been released.
It was posted on Schumacher’s website by his family and is the first unseen footage to emerge since his accident.
In it, Schumacher reflects on his life in F1, having ended his career for a second time only a year previously after a comeback with Mercedes.
He describes his most emotional championship victory – having won a record seven in his illustrious career – as being his first with Ferrari in 2000.
Schumacher, who had previously rarely spoken about his career, said: ’21 years no championship with Ferrari, four years myself failing , then finally, in a great race, to achieve it, win the world championship.’
He describes former McLaren driver Mika Hakkinen as being the rival driver he respected more than any other in his career – but that his greatest sporting idol as a child was not an F1 racer.
The famously focused and bloody-minded Schumacher also reveals his belief that his success in F1 owed as much to team work as to his individual race skill.
He said: ‘Success, as in any situation of life, or in most I know, is about teamwork. Yourself, you do what you do. As a team, you will be much stronger. Formula One is a team work, and definitely not a one man show.’
Asked about whether he ever doubted his abilities, Schumacher said that he was always skeptical and self-critical even when analysing his two titles with Benetton and his five in a row for Ferrari.