Michael Schumacher broke down in tears and considered quitting Formula 1 after Ayrton Senna's fatal crash in 1994, according to revelations in the Netflix documentary Schumacher ’94 – The Birth of a Legend, released on Friday.
Senna was killed during that year's San Marino Grand Prix at Imola when he crashed into a concrete barrier at the Tamburello corner at around 190 miles per hour. Despite the tragedy, the race continued, and Schumacher took the chequered flag. However, the post-race celebrations were muted, and the German legend was visibly shaken as he stepped out of his Benetton car.
Behind-the-scenes distress
Di Spires, who worked on Benetton's hospitality staff at the time, revealed that Schumacher was inconsolable behind the scenes and expressed a desire to walk away from F1 altogether. She said: "Michael was obviously very distressed and he said: ‘I don’t know what happened to him’. We were actually crying in the kitchen. He said: ‘I don’t want to do this any more’. I can remember him saying that."
She added: "Whether he can remember saying it, I don’t know, but he said: ‘I don’t want to do this. Why? Why did that happen to Ayrton?’. He was beside himself. Everything just went into slow motion in a way afterwards. The paddock was just silent."
Manager and wife recall the aftermath
Willi Weber, Schumacher's former manager, added: "I’ll never forget the way he came into the motorhome and sat down on the steps and cried. He was completely distraught. No one could calm him down. He told me quite honestly that he was thinking about if he’d even race again in the next Grand Prix."
Archive footage showed Schumacher admitting: "The worst was really for two weeks after this, once I really had to accept it, that he is dead. This was just something crazy. In Silverstone I went there and you suddenly saw many things with different eyes. I went around in a road car through the circuit and I just thought: ‘This is a point you could be dead and this is a point you could be dead’. I always raced here but there are so many points you can crash and be immediately dead."
He continued: "It was the only thing I was thinking of. When I went in the car, fortunately I seemed to drive not thinking of this any more. You know where your limit is but sometimes you try to push your limit. In this moment, I certainly didn’t do this. I knew my limit and I drove in my limit and I didn’t try anything. I had to find out if this limit I used to know is still a quick limit."
Schumacher added: "At the time people thought I was completely cold with no emotions, but I never express my feelings when I win and I don’t express on the other side. I’m just that type of person, but people that know me know what I’m feeling."
Corinna's perspective
Schumacher's wife, Corinna, revealed that while he tried to hide the true nature of his distress from her, it was obvious that her husband was deeply affected. Holding back tears, she recalled: "He never actually said to me: ‘I don’t know if I can still do this’. Yeah, I think [he was protecting me], because for the people watching, it’s often even harder than it is for the ones that are out there doing it."
She added: "We had this bench where we’d always sit whenever anything happened. That’s where we’d talk things through. It was important for us not to end up snapping at each other or anything like that. We never really did, though. At the beginning, when I got louder, he got quieter, and that was really clever. The strength in staying calm, I thought: ‘He’s handling this well’."
Corinna concluded: "Honestly, if I said: ‘I don’t want you to race’… you can’t stop a real racer from driving. I wouldn’t have stood a chance."
