How Bernie Ecclestone Bullied Team Principals into Signing a Young Michael Schumacher

During the F1 Beyond the Grid podcast, former F1 team boss Eddie Jordan spoke about numerous subjects. Among them, he talked about recruiting Michael Schumacher into Jordan when he was a rookie. Apparently, former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone had a big hand in signing the German.

As it turned out, Ecclestone arrived in Belgium and noticed the rise in German interest and wanted to capitalise. So, he spoke to Benetton boss Flavio Briatore and insisted that he give Michael Schumacher a test run. However, Briatore planned to run Nelson Piquet, while Tom Walkinshaw wanted to field Martin Brundle. So, Bernie Ecclestone managed to convince everyone that Schumacher was the real deal.

Michael Schumacher reaches F1, the rest is history

In the end, Ecclestone won the battle and Schumacher got his much-anticipated debut. Since then, the German Weltmeister went on to forge a hugely successful path. He holds the record for the most F1 world championships till date, but Lewis Hamilton is on his way to overhaul that.

Schumi retired from racing at the end of the 2006 season, but eventually realised that he still had an itch to race. So, he promptly returned in 2010 to link up with the Mercedes team and Nico Rosberg. Sadly, it wasn’t the fairytale swansong that he wanted. he came away with one more pole position and one podium.

However, it did prove that there was still some fight in the old dog. Now, Michael Schumacher is engaged in the biggest fight ever, the fight for his life. After suffering a skiing accident in late 2012, he is recovering from the injury, in total privacy. Any news about the Ferrari legend has been few and far in-between. Rest assured, he is still alive, but the Schumacher family and his management have asked the media to respect their privacy.