Michael Schumacher: A Life on the Highway
He lived a life on the fast track: Michael Schumacher not only raced from one victory to the next in Formula 1, he loved the speed and the excitement off the track. The seven-time world champion was a passionate motorcyclist, paratrooper and diver, and used mountain bikes and sleds. The fact that the sports idol was an adrenaline junkie with a movement addict was further clarified in the “Schumacher” documentary, which can be seen on Netflix starting September 15. The nearly two-hour film traces the unique career of a distinguished racing driver with great archive photos and also includes some photos from the Schumacher family’s private archives that show him diving or skydiving.
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Only the last minutes of the film deals with a tragic skiing accident in 2013 in the French Alps, in which Schumacher suffered a severe brain injury and required nursing care. “Schumacher” is basically a documentary about the illustrious racing driver who became a seven-time world champion and made his mark in Formula 1 for years.
The absolute desire to win always
In addition to Schumacher’s wife Corinna, son Mick, who is now also a Formula 1 driver, and daughter Jenna, the fast-paced documentary also features a number of former companions and competitors such as Mika Hakkinen, Damon Hill and David Coulthard or the former. Ferrari team principal Jean Todt, who remains one of the 52-year-old Michael Schumacher’s closest friends. They all speak, sometimes with sparkling eyes, of a man who was passionate about his sport and who combined extraordinary talent with great diligence, technical expertise and ambition that sometimes went too far.
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The unconditional will to always want to win has led to some racing situations, which are very critically evaluated in the documents – for example when he touched rival Damon Hill in a Benetton car in 1994 in the last race in his Benetton at Williams after a driving error, It was then that both of them withdrew from the race and Schumacher, who was on the points lead, became world champion for the first time. It was the German driver’s first Formula 1 World Championship, which was due to be followed by six others during Schumacher’s career. With his successes in the 1990s and 2000s, he catapulted himself to the front row of great German sports stars such as Max Schmeling, Fritz Walter, Franz Beckenbauer and Boris Becker.
“Michael has always been protecting us. Now we are protecting Michael”
Rare private footage of the sports idol shows a helmeted, oversized Totta like a little astronaut, who achieved his first successes with daring racing maneuvers on his parents’ kart track in Kerpen, near Cologne. 30 years ago, at the age of 22, he jumped into Formula 1, where he celebrated his first win a year later. The talented young driver from Germany quickly became a serious contender for the Brazilian Ayrton Senna, who was the iconic figure in Formula 1 in the early 1990s and who had a fatal accident in 1994 – in a race at Imola with Schumacher on his heels. The documentary, which features stunning racing scenes, also focuses on Schumacher’s initially difficult time with the legendary Italian racing team Ferrari, with whom he became world champion from 2000 to 2004.
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“It was just bad luck. You couldn’t have more bad luck,” says Corina Schumacher, resisting tears, in the last few minutes of the documentary, which is about a serious ski accident for Schumacher and its dire consequences. Since the tragic accident, it has been The sports idol has to be taken care of by his family.” Michael has always been protective of us. “Now we are protecting Michael,” says Corinna, who has been married to Schumacher for 26 years.