Sport | Motorsport
Ferrari shocked by Schumacher spurn
Michael Schumacher spurned Ferrari's pleas for him to become the Italian team's £5 million-a-year (Dh27.28m) Grand Prix race boss.
- By Ted Macauley, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:35 November 20, 2008
Michael Schumacher spurned Ferrari's pleas for him to become the Italian team's £5 million-a-year (Dh27.28m) Grand Prix race boss.
His sensational knockback, kept secret until now, staggered the Ferrari hierarchy.
And more especially when he said he preferred to focus on his new passion - motorbike racing at 200-plus mph.
The seven-times Formula One world champion - five of his titles won back-to-back in a Ferrari, was strongly courted by Luca Montezemolo, the company's powerful supremo, to take the job at the start of this season.
Newly-married Frenchman Jean Todt, Schuey's team mastermind during his triumphant title run, announced he was stepping down and his role was offered to the German ace.
But by then 39-year-old father of two Schumacher was sticking his neck out - and crashing frequently, in his homeland motorbike racing championship with plans to do it even more seriously and more often next year.
Despite Montezemolo's overtures and F1 ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone's eagerness for him to take up the offer he opted instead to assume a less demanding position as an advisor to the team, sitting occasionally on the trackside pitwall and playing mentor to Brazilian driver Felipe Massa.
And the team manager's job was handed to the affable Stefano Domenicali, a popular figure for the Prancing Horse outfit around the paddock.
Schuey, who pocketed around £900m from his spectacular, record-breaking career, reveals: "Yes, I had the chance to do what Jean Todt had been doing - to become a director of Ferrari for the racing part of the company."
Back home, at his sumptuous lakeside mansion in tax-haven Switzerland, he talked the offer over with his wife.
She, mindful of the new wave of risks after his years spent on the edge in F1, would have preferred him to accept and abandon his dangerous superbike racing ambitions.
Amazing
But he hated the idea of being stranded and stuck in an office, a crucial part of the responsibility he would have inherited, far removed from the action and competitive involvement he craved.
"I saw how much passion and dedication Jean put into the job - just like I did in the car - and it was awesome," he said.
"But far too often he was just sitting behind his desk in Maranello, day after day, late into the night and even at weekends.
"And I said to myself 'Do I need this?' My answer was...and is...simply No. Not at all."
His long-term admirer Bernie Ecclestone, the F1 figurehead, said: "Let's put this into perspective. It's a bit like David Beckham turning down the chance to manage Manchester United. Amazing."
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