Michael Schumacher has given an insight into his relationship with early rival Ayrton Senna – saying that the Brazilian belonged to a different generation of racing driver to him.
Although a battle for Formula 1 supremacy between the young Schumacher and the sport's then-superstar was cut short in its prime when the Brazilian was killed at Imola in 1994, the two had clashed on several occasions in the German’s first three years in the sport.
One occasion was at the French Grand Prix in 1992 when Schumacher crashed into Senna at the hairpin on the opening lap, and the seven-time-champion revealed in an interview with German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung’s magazine what was said to him.
“He said: ‘Look, what happened happened. OK. But unlike you I’ll talk to you directly and tell you that you’ve messed up. But I don’t go to the media and make it public,” Schumacher said.
"He often did [thing's like] that. We didn’t get on very well in those days.
“That wasn’t really a lesson for me but typical Formula 1 theatre like it was the norm in Senna’s days.
“What was far more important for our relationship was that we got on much better in 1994.
“Someday we started to talk to each other like racing drivers should: frank and like colleagues," he recalled.
“Senna belonged to a different generation.
“There was this invisible pecking order and each new driver had to find his place.
“You had to earn the respect of the elders on the track.”
Schumacher also admitted that the one time he thought about quitting the sport early in his career, was after the deaths of Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994.
He revealed one of the reasons he didn’t travel to Brazil to attend the funeral of his rival was because he was contemplating his own future in the sport.
“I thought about their deaths very intensely and I asked myself what Formula 1 and motor sport still meant for me,” he said.
“That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t go to Ayrton’s funeral but I went testing instead.
“I had to find out whether I could continue to race, whether it would still be
fun for me.
“And I didn’t want to mourn in public, everybody would have just waited for me to cry. I visited Ayrton’s grave later with Corinna.”
It would have been superb to see a rivalry between the two greatest drivers of all time. The world was robbed of such a glorious opportuntiy
Michael Schumacher lifts lid on Senna rivalry
