3 hours Ago By Joe Brophy
Michael Schumacher achieved nearly everything in motorsport - but the 24 Hours of Le Mans was one thing he failed to win. The German was instead beaten by his future Formula One teammate Johnny Herbert , who helped claim Mazda's only Le Mans triumph before having to wait 20 years to stand on the podium. Schumacher is one of 22 F1 world champions to have attempted to do the double by featuring in the world's greatest endurance race.
However, the Ferrari superstar was denied the opportunity to join the exclusive five-person club to have won both in his 1991 entry. For the uninitiated, Le Mans, the oldest and most prestigious race of its kind, requires a different set of skills needed to succeed in F1. Where a traditional Grand Prix prioritizes speed, its French marathon counterpart, which started in 1923, rewards reliability and fuel efficiency.
Le Mans also requires teamwork in the fashion of relay racing where three drivers take turns behind the wheel over a 24-hour period. In contrast, F1 stars usually consider their teammate as their most direct rival - something Herbert can attest to more than most. The British motorsport legend was alongside Schumacher for the first of his seven world titles at Benetton in 1994 and 1995.
By then, the two were well acquainted having gone wheel-to-wheel at the 59th Grand Prix of Endurance on June 22 and 23, 1991 - a month before Schumacher made his F1 debut at Jordan-Ford in Belgium . Every driver at Le Mans is pushing their body to the physical limit, but Herbert's stint came a mere three years after a horror crash. In 1988, he survived a life-altering collision that the 60-year-old admitted to talkSPORT he's still 'stiff and painful' from 36 years later.
Herbert's feet and ankles were smashed while competing in International Formula 3000 at Brands Hatch, with doctors saying he would never walk again - let alone race. Against all the odds, the Essex-born driver made his F1 debut after a six-month recovery, but his injuries resurfaced in Le Mans. Herbert was the sole Brit flying the flag in the unfancied Mazda 787B alongside German Volker Weidler and Belgian Bertrand Gachot.
Weidler made a strong start in the Number 55 Mazda that started from 19th on the grid, but victory was still Sauber Mercedes ' to lose. The German powerhouse had three teams fronting their C11 cars, which included Jochen Mass, who'd won Le Mans in 1989, and a 22-year-old Schumacher, who smashed five seconds off the lap record that had been set the previous year with his turn at 10:45pm. Mercedes-Benz's reliability issues opened the door for Herbert in the Mazda 787B to take the lead.
He was in pain but had to keep pushing. To compound his issues, Herbert had exhausted his water supply but team manager Jacky Ickx, a six-time Le Mans winner himself, made the call for him to do a double stint to finish the race. The same determination that saw Herbert recover from a hospital bed to the elite of motorsport also enabled him to cross the finish line of France’s Circuit de la Sarthe - with the 787B's 362 laps covered two more than the second-placed Jaguar.
Ironically though, his superhuman efforts carried him back to the medical centre after he collapsed shortly after leaving the car. It meant Herbert missed out on receiving his trophy on the podium, and photos from the 1991 race will only show two drivers celebrating. Detailing that unique experience during an exclusive interview with talkSPORT, Herbert revealed: “Well, at that particular weekend, I never saw it [the LeMan podium celebrations], no.
“Jackie Ickx was actually part of our team at that time, and he only told me about two years ago that he never saw the podium either, because he was looking after me, taking me to the hospital to put me on a drip. “So I look back and it's annoying, embarrassing in some way that I never made that made the podium.” Fortunately, Herbert did recover in time to join the after-party, as Mazda became the first Asian manufacturer to win Le Mans.
He told talkSPORT: “I did actually get there, so I was back into the world, and it was just brilliant. “It was just so good, I suppose, not being on that podium with Volker and Bertrand, but then it was seeing both of them because we done a couple of years together. I'd raced with Bertrand when we did Formula Ford in the very early days.
“It was nice seeing them and enjoying that surprise victory that I suppose we probably didn't expect, but we all drove the wheels of it but we did it together as a team - And that was the most important thing!” It would be another four years before Herbert would get the chance to stand on the top step of the podium following a race both he and Schumacher had competed in. The setting was the 1995 British Grand Prix at Silverstone - a career-high that does still carry one slight regret..
. handing his F1's winners cap to former Benetton team principal Flavio Briatore, with its current whereabouts unknown. “Well, I suppose I should go and break into Flavio Briatore’s house to be able to get that back,” Herbert joked.
“Because I gave it to Flavio stupidly. “The original is only going to be [meaningful], so it wouldn't be anything [to receive a replica]. No, I'm very lucky.
I've still got the trophy!” And at the end of the day, that's all that matters...
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