Different thoughts after twenty years
The 2006 Monte Carlo Grand Prix qualifying saw one of the most controversial episodes of Michael Schumacher’s career, who parked his Ferrari at Rascasse in an attempt to prevent all other drivers (starting with his title rival Fernando Alonso) from beating his time. A pole position that was, however, cancelled by the race stewards, who penalized the German by demoting him to the last place on the starting grid. The decision infuriated the then Team Principal Jean Todt, who acted as his driver’s ‘defense lawyer’, considering the maneuver the result of an involuntary error. Yet, twenty years after the event, the French manager has sensationally admitted how much the action taken by Schumacher was actually deliberate.
The contact with Villeneuve
A maneuver that also had strong repercussions on the fight for that year’s world championship, the German’s last in Ferrari, as well as the one that occurred in 1997. In that case, in an attempt to defend against Jacques Villeneuve’s attack at the Dry Sac corner in Jerez, the Ferrari driver steered into the Canadian’s Williams, ending up in the gravel and suffering a disqualification from the Drivers’ championship: “He rammed him on purpose, and he did it badly – Todt admitted in an interview with High Performance referring to what happened in 1997 – Michael is an extraordinary guy, but every time he lost control he paid the consequences dearly. So it cost him the championship, as in 2006, in the Monte Carlo qualifying with Alonso, when he spun on purpose. He had to start from the back of the grid, and that too cost him the world title. So the two mistakes he made cost him the championship“.
Impulsive gesture
Limited to what happened with Villeneuve, Todt is still convinced today that Schumacher’s maneuver was not premeditated, but was an impulsive gesture that the seven-time world champion carried out in an attempt to defend the race lead at the moment he realized the championship was slipping away from him: “It was just an emotion – he explained – that’s why, when judging someone in action, you have to be very lenient. It’s easy to say at the table “you should do this”, “you should do that”. But when you are in the heat of the action, you have to understand that the brain reacts differently. When he realized he was going to lose the championship, because he had to be ahead of Villeneuve, he made a mistake. He needed support. It was a wrong move, it wasn’t necessary“.
