2 weeks Ago By Joe Brophy
Michael Schumacher is renowned for being the most ruthless Formula One driver of all time. However, according to his former teammate Johnny Herbert, the German F1 icon had a very 'English sense of humour' off-track. British motorsport legend Herbert was alongside Schumacher for the first of his seven world titles in 1994 and 1995.
The pair were at Benetton together, where the latter's fearsome reputation as a cold, cutthroat competitor was in its infancy. Schumacher's win-at-all-costs mentality remains polarising to this day, with one of his infamously aggressive incidents causing him to be retrospectively disqualified from the 1997 championship for intentionally attempting to collide with Jacques Villeneuve in the final race. He also deliberately crashed in qualifying for the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix to prevent drivers behind him from beating his time - despite being 37 and already a seven-time world champion.
Three-time Grand Prix winner Herbert was Schumacher's first teammate in F1 to survive more than a single season working with him. The now-60-year-old knew more than most about the future Ferrari superstar's mentality, having once been barred from looking at his telemetry data after posting a faster lap time in qualifying. During an exclusive interview with talkSPORT.
com, Herbert lifted the lid on the other side of Schumacher . After stepping away from the sport in 2006, Schumacher's comeback with Mercedes four years later allowed fans to see the type of 'English sense of humour' those closest to him already knew he had. Herbert explained to talkSPORT: “The English sense of humour was the humour [we shared] having a chat after we had a debrief, for example, he had a very, I say, English sense of humour where he could joke about things on TV.
“He could joke about things that had happened, maybe at the racetrack itself. So he had a good humour that was seen by all, and I think that was always the important thing. “I think we saw it laterally when he was at Mercedes.
I think there was a much more relaxed Michael than there was when it was the intense Michael in probably his Benetton years, but probably more so in his Ferrari years. “But I understand why there was time and a place to have that humour come out.” Herbert was more than accustomed to the trials and tribulations of racing in the same team as a future world champion by then.
The ex-F1 commentator had previously impressed in the 24 races he drove alongside Mika Hakkinen at Lotus, outqualifying him 14 times. There's a widespread belief that two-time world champion Hakkinen was the driver that Schumacher feared the most during his career. What we do know for certain is that unlike Schumacher it took the Finnish driver time to adapt to the English sense of humour.
Hakkinen infamously once claimed that he walked in on Herbert in the bath playing with a duck when the duo were forced to share a hotel room at the Holiday Inn in Magny-Cours. His account was refuted in Herbert's autobiography, and laughing while doing so, the Brit confirmed the roles were indeed reversed. Herbert confirmed to talkSPORT that '[Hakkinen] was in the bath’, and that the Finn had been confused by him jokingly pretending to climb into the water with him.
He hilariously recalled: “Mika's humour now, is fantastic. You know, the Finns generally are fun, real fun, but there's a different type of fun with the British humour compared to a Finnish humour. But when you mix those together, it's, it's quite a good place to be in when you when you go out with Mika, now, because you just have a fun time.
“You always had fun. But it was a much more sort of Finnish, straight humour, where now there's that mix of the British and the Finnish, and it works brilliantly. And that's where Michael still had that ability.
“I think Sebastian [Vettel] was another one. We never really saw it. Everybody used to hate that didn’t they, when the finger went up, you know, number one.
Number one, number one. “Everybody hated that, but his humour was fantastic, but the teams never allowed it to come out. “It was only a little bit later that we saw that.
But there is also with teams, of course, they want to have the drivers doing the corporate right thing at the same time.” Herbert continued by recalling post-race antics from the 90s era of F1 that would be impossible in today's world. Lewis Hamilton arranged a farewell dinner for Vettel in 2022, and images showed the entire grid attended the media-friendly event.
However, once it had been confirmed that it had been the brainchild of seven-time world champion Hamilton, conspiracy theories began to emerge. A photo of a bill that claimed to be from the F1 drivers dinners was shared widely on social media, totalling $140,000 (£115k). Williams driver Alex Albon later confirmed the bill was fake - but did admit Hamilton had been the one to pay the cost of the dinner.
Regardless, the furore surrounding the 2022 meet-up was in stark contrast to the 90s, where drivers used to be able to let their hair down together without running the risk of antics ending up online. Herbert shared one fond memory of Schumacher's inner jokester emerging from an Australian Grand Prix after-party in Adelaide. Those antics are how the Essex-born racer chooses to remember his former teammate, who suffered a life-altering skiing accident in December 2013 .
Herbert explained to talkSPORT: “There's a time and a place for [those antics], and that's where Michael was very good at doing exactly what he needed to do in front of the media, doing exactly what he needed to do when he was with the engineer in the cockpit itself. “But then there was that release that came out at the same time where that's the sense of humour, the British sense of humour and television - Sebastian definitely with Monty Python, where he liked that, that type of humour. And it's nice that drivers, I think, still have that ability to have fun.
“It's a slightly different scenario of when I was racing, and we all went out and Michael in Australia, in Adelaide, last race of the year all finished. “We'd all go to the same place, and he'd go around after having a few tipples or whatever it may have been, and he'd just go around there and rip everybody's shirts off. “That was, again, part of, you know, his fun side at the same time.
So we miss all that for sure.” Herbert also heaped praise on three-time world champion Max Verstappen for keeping the colourful side of F1 alive. The Dutchman made headlines for his reaction to an FIA community-service punishment for swearing by offering only basic responses during his next press conference - before then holding an in-depth impromptu chat with the same journalists outside in the paddock.
“Now it has to be a CIA-organised dinner for the drivers,” Herbert says. “Just because everything with mobile phones and not trying, not having their time away from the fans that are there, it's just a very different thing. “Mobile phones are just everywhere, cameras, they weren't, it wasn't the same back in the mid-90s, I guess.
“So it's good that we still have someone like Max showing his [personality].” Herbert’s message is clear: F1 needs its characters - flawed, rebellious, and authentic. As the sport continues to evolve, it’s these personalities that keep the magic alive.
And for Herbert, who has lived through the highs and lows of the sport, there is no substitute for drivers who aren’t afraid to be themselves. “Characters are very important in all sports,” Herbert added. “They're definitely important in Formula One.
And I have to say, I think we've got a good bunch, actually, who've got a nice sense of humour. And Max? 'He’s damn exciting when he's on the track', Herbert says with a grin. “I thoroughly enjoy watching him when he's driving.
But there are those, just those little things like that, what happened in Singapore, which is something that you'll want to see a little bit less of sometimes, but we want to see it when they're in the car.” The rest of the 90s saw Herbert separately partner two of the biggest F1 characters of all time in Schumacher and Haikennen. That golden era of motorsport included starring feats from Senna, Mansell, Prost, Hill, and Villeneuve but amid all that were three Grands Prix victories for Herbert.
That is as many as Norris and Ferrari's Carlos Sainz, and one more than Hamilton teammate George Russell and McLaren's Oscar Piastri. Herbert has interviewed all of those names during his post-competitive race career as a former Sky F1 Expert Analyst. His frequent returns to the grid reunite him with drivers of his era, but whether it's past or present, few understand his lingering pain.
Herbert exclusively told talkSPORT: "Everything I went through with my accident, I think it's something that gets very forgotten, of the seriousness of the accident at that time, and actually having the success that I had when I got into Formula One, do I feel sometimes that I'm not given enough credit? Sometimes yes, I must be honest. "But I think that's just because people are not very aware of what damage I have. You know, you see me walk around now and I'm sort of quite stiff, and it's quite painful when I do it now, when I see all my other fellow drivers, none of them have got any pain like I had.
"So it would be nice for people to [recognise] - Some do...
" Herbert added: "I have to say, someone like Lewis, for example, I think Max [Verstappen] as well, they realize what happened to me, and it's something that, you know, it's nice. "It's nice for people to be aware of what happened to me." This interview with Johnny Herbert was conducted via Genting Casino where fans have the chance to win a VIP experience for the Abu Dhabi GP.
Please click here for more details..
