Mick Cleary
OOPS! You’re barely round the first circuit of the interview and you’re off the track already. All those good intentions to steer a straight line along a route of technical interrogation, bluffing furiously about gear shifts, aerodynamic force, fuel loads, go up in smoke as you give into temptation and plough straight into the wall.
It’s the Basil Fawlty syndrome, the twitch not to mention the obvious. You can’t help it, though. The only really interesting thing to ask a 21-year-old rather stern- faced German who’s scarcely out of short trousers, has never driven in a grand prix, lives in the antiseptic world of Monaco, and has a personal manager at his side to tend to his needs, is just how difficult it will be to become the best racing driver in the world when you’re not even the best racing driver in your own household.
By far the biggest task Ralf Schumacher will face this weekend and beyond is coping with the relentless fascination with his surname. Not only has he got the name, Schumacher junior has also got the same mannerisms, the same self-possessed, distant air, the same pale blue-eyed, elongated features, the same everything in fact – management team, fitness schedules, diet and, above all else, attitude. On the fast track to fame and glory, Ralf has all the detached, contained, confident characteristics of his brother, Michael, seven years his senior. Has Ralf, though, got his ability?
It’s the question which will taunt him throughout the season. He’s already shown that he can be testy when quizzed excessively on the subject. As a result some have marked him down as a cold fish, a rather remote, humourless figure, too hard- nosed and inscrutable by half. It’s too easy (and too early) to snatch at the stereotype. Even though there was a resigned slump of the shoulders when our interview veered towards the subject, there was enough sensitivity and honesty in his responses to suggest that his thought processes have not yet completely switched over to automatic, and begrudging, transmission.
“There is a positive side to being a Schumacher, for sure,” he said last week, idling away the time in the Jordan garage at Silverstone while the mechanics wrestled with the snag which had aborted the morning practice session. “It brought me into Michael’s management team, where Willi Weber gave me an early chance to run in a good F3 team. Sponsors, too, probably came more easily.
“But there is a downside. I make a mistake, like all young drivers, and it’s because I’m arrogant, because I think I can do it all. Maybe some drivers think I got the rides because of who I am, not what I do. That’s their view. For me, it’s just not a problem. My name is Schumacher. In the end I am accepted because I am a racing driver, not because I have a good name.’
His team boss, Eddie Jordan, an irrepressible Dubliner whose patter, push, roguish charm and fast-talking ways capture perfectly the rock ‘n roll, high-finance mix of the sport, rejects any notion that he was drawn to the name rather than the driver. “Nothing whatsoever to do with it,” says Jordan. “The name meant nothing. The same as when Senna da Silva first arrived here in 1982. The same too with Damon Hill. They’re guys who I fancied to go places. I don’t see it as a gamble at all. Our best results have always come from younger drivers.
“Ralf brings an enormous amount of speed with him. He has a long, long way to go before he gets anywhere near his brother’s level. But all the evidence suggests that he has indeed got his talent.”
Ralf Schumacher does not want to take part in the comparison game. It’s a wise move. They are too far apart in age for there to have been any significant sibling rivalry when growing up.
“I just want to prove that I am me, that’s all,” he says. “But I have no problem with Michael’s status, that’s for sure. He is the best Formula One driver in the world. I would say that even if he were not my brother. It’s obvious. My aim is not particularly to beat him, nor to try and jump out of his shadow. I simply don’t have a problem with all that. My results will make me my own man or not. That’s all I care about – good results.”
His results so far have been impressive, enough to have attracted the eagle eye of Jordan, a man renowned along the pit lane for his shrewd investments. Ralf Schumacher revved his way through the traditional apprenticeship of karting. He won several karting titles before making his F3 debut with the WTS team in 1993. As he himself admits, doors which other youngsters would have had to take a crowbar and jemmy to, opened for him because of his name.
In 1995 he won the F3 World Final in Macau. He moved to the Far East last year to compete for the Le Mans team in the All Nippon F3000 championship, the demanding testing ground for all young wannabes. The Schumacher wannabe won the championship at his very first go.
“To go to Japan and survive is some achievement,” says Jordan. “To go there and win a race is unbelievable. To go there and win the title is unheard of.”
He’s a guarded, prosaic, individual, is Ralf Schumacher, which doesn’t make him a bad man. “No, I’m not at all romantic about what I do,” he says. “It is my job to go fast, that is all. I’m not too wound up about coming into Formula One. It’s the same experience as other forms of racing. You want to go quickly, that is your only thought. It’s just a job. There was a moment, though, when I was testing and Michael was nearby and it suddenly sank in that here we were, two brothers and yet among the very best in the world. But I don’t dwell on it.”
Comparison will stalk Ralf this season. It’s unlikely to floor him. His entourage will see to that. So too will his brother. He may well bridle at the incessant coupling of his name with that of his illustrious elder. There is no question, however, of him denying his own past. Quite the opposite.
“Michael has helped me since I was young,” says Ralf. “He still does. If I need advice, on a circuit or even on the car, then it is to Michael I turn. He will answer me. He has no problem with that. If he were new to F1 and I were new then maybe there would be tension. I don’t know. What I do know is that we are close. In fact we have never been closer.”
It is a simple statement. Yet it tells you all you need to know about the Schumacher brothers.