Jens Marx, dpa I Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2023
ABU DHABI – Mick Schumacher, the son of Michael Schumacher has said that his perception has changed since the skiing accident 10 years ago of his famous father, seven-times Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher.
“I believe that in such cases you learn to perceive certain moments differently,” the 24-year-old told dpa at this year’s F1 season finale in Abu Dhabi.
“You learn to appreciate the little things.”
He said he believes that many people “focus too much on the bad things and not enough on the nice things that are still there.”
Michael Schumacher suffered severe head injury when he fell while skiing in the French Alps on December 29, 2013. His son was 14 when the accident happened during a winter holiday in Méribel.
Since the crash, in which Michael Schumacher hit his head on a stone and his helmet was broken, the soon-to-be 55-year-old has not appeared in public.
He spent days fighting for survival in a Grenoble hospital and was in an induced coma for a long time. His health status is not know as his family has protected his privacy ever since.
“Michael always protected us, now we are protecting him,” his wife, Corinna, said in a 2021 documentary, in which the family gave some insights into life together after the accident for the first time.
Mick Schumacher told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung at the time it was very difficult watching the documentary, saying: “It shows how much feeling is behind it and how many emotions it creates.”
He said in the documentary: “I think that dad and I would understand each other in a different way now – simply because we speak in a similar language, this motorsport language. And that we would have a lot more to talk about.”
He would give up everything for that, Mick Schumacher said.
Mick Schumacher competed in F1 himself, in 2021 and 2022. He didn’t get a regular cockpit this year and for 2024 but is a test and reserve driver for the Mercedes F1 team.
He will however also compete in the 2024 World Endurance Championship for Alpine, which will take him to the famous French venue of Le Mans, where his father raced as well before his glittering F1 career.
“I’m kind of doing it the other way round, why not?” Mick Schumacher said in Abu Dhabi. “I always thought that there were coincidentally many similarities to my father’s career.”
