Michael Schumacher’s younger brother has been branded a “selfish git” for his behaviour in a crash back in 1997.
Ralf Schumacher followed in his brother’s foot-steps by earning a seat on the grid for the 1997 Formula One season. The German raced for Jordan, a team headed by entrepreneur Eddie Jordan, as he eagerly sought to make an impression in F1.
Yet the time two-time world champion’s sibling quickly developed a knack for causing accidents, retiring six times in his first seven races.
And one of Ralf’s later crashes at the Italian Grand Prix that season left a bitter taste in Sky Sports F1 pundit Johnny Herbert's mouth, who drove for Sauber at the time.
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The younger Schumacher fired Herbert into the barriers at high speed on lap 38 at Monza, resulting in both drivers being forced to retire. And Herbert, 59, still hasn’t forgiven the “arrogant” and “obnoxious” Ralf for lacking the courage to apologise for the incident.
The former British driver told CasinoSite: “The one racer I didn’t like the most, because I found his arrogance on the track awful, was Schumacher, Ralf that is! He was obnoxious.
“He took me off the circuit once at 215 mph at Monza and his team had to push him to come back to apologise. From that point I thought, ‘you horrible selfish git’.
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“The professional thing to do when you have made a mistake is immediately go up and apologise. He didn’t have the balls to do it.”
Herbert does, however, hold a soft spot for Michael Schumacher, having been his team-mate at Benetton for two seasons. The seven-time F1 champion suffered a severe brain injury following a skiing accident in 2013 and has been out of the public eye ever since, with his absence causing great sadness in F1 circles.
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Herbert said: “We have lost a megastar of our sport who gave so much enjoyment to a lot of people. It was very sad that Mick couldn’t have his Dad around and it is sad that we as an F1 community don’t have him around the paddock.
“It is a shame. Everyone loses out on learning about the Michael Schumacher we never saw when he was in the cockpit.”
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