Sky Sports F1 pundit Karun Chandhok has recalled a heartwarming story involving legend Michael Schumacher during their Formula 1 days together. Schumacher had just come out of his first retirement 13 years ago and was awaiting his first race in three years, but made sure to take a moment to speak with the then-Hispania Racing driver before his debut.
Chandhook, understandably nervous ahead of his first F1 race, was preparing a few days prior on media day when Schumacher took some time to speak with the young driver. Chandhok retired early into the 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix, but recently opened up on the fond moment that has stuck firmly in his memory.
“When I did my first F1 race in Bahrain in 2010, on the Thursday, the media day, Michael was the first driver that said hello to me and said ‘welcome to F1’,” Chandhok told OLBG. “He then spent five minutes just chatting, asking about my background and where I was from and wished me luck for my season. He didn’t need to do that.
“This was the race where he was making his big comeback with Mercedes and at that time he was the biggest star, bigger than Lewis Hamilton or Fernando Alonso, he was the biggest star that the sport had and making his big return.
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“I was a nobody, he didn’t need to do that and I always really appreciated that, the fact he took that five minutes to make me feel welcome in the sport. He was a great guy and a fantastic driver.
“Michael Schumacher was one of my heroes, when Prost retired in ’93 I became a big Michael fan, though I didn’t like what he did with Jacques Villeneuve and Damon Hill, but overall I still appreciated his utter brilliance.”
Current drivers haven’t been able to share similar heartwarming moments with the F1 legend, after he suffered a serious skiing accident in December 2013, in which he hit his head on a rock and sustained a severe head injury. He was then placed in a medically induced coma for six months, before returning to his home in Switzerland.
The 54-year-old has not made a public appearance since the accident, with updates on his health very rare as his wife Corinna has kept his condition private.
Schumacher’s son, Mick, who raced for Haas last season and now is a reserve driver for Mercedes, opened up in a Netflix documentary about his father.
“I think dad and me, we would understand each other in a different way now,” he said in 2021. “Simply because we speak a similar language, the language of motorsport. And we would have so much more to talk about. That’s where my head is most of the time. Thinking that it would be cool that would be. I would give up everything just for that.”
