Racing was only half of the fun for Michael Schumacher during his F1 career, with many of his peers succumbing to the bait he’d throw out as he looked to get in their heads

Michael Schumacher loved to play mind games with the F1 grid(Image: Paul Gilham/Getty Images)

No one was safe from the king of Formula 1 mind games Michael Schumacher – not even his own team-mates. The seven-time world champion was as fierce a competitor off the track as he was on it during his legendary racing career.

He’d look to gain every edge possible with psychological warfare. One rival he particularly drew the ire of was Damon Hill, whom he controversially crashed into at the season-ending 1994 Australian Grand Prix to win his maiden F1 title by just one point.

The Brit developed a pure hatred for his German counterpart, labelling him the master of mental manipulation. Expanding on some examples of how Schumacher would get under his skin, Hill told the High Performance Podcast earlier this year: “He’d do stuff like – in a press conference, I’d won a race of be in pole position, and they’d come to me and he’d start up a conversation with Jacques [Villeneuve] or someone like that.

“So he’s chatting away while you’re talking. You’d kind of [be like], ‘I wasn’t talking when you were being interviewed.’ So anyway, little things like that would start to irritate you. He was quite adept at dismissing you to the press, and I, like a fool, rose to the bait.

“It was odd because in driver briefings, he and I would have conversations or discuss things and sort of work together on stuff as well. But he was very aloof.

“He was able to cut himself off so you couldn’t get any human connection with him at all, which I think that’s my particular weakness. If someone’s not showing me some sort of humanity, I kind of get irritated by that a bit.”

Schumacher was in the early stages of his career when he was battling Hill for victories. But his competitive spirit was still burning strong when he returned to the sport in 2010 after a three-year hiatus to race for Mercedes. He partnered a 24-year-old Nico Rosberg.

Schumacher certainly knew how to push Hill’s buttons(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

But it was far from a friendly mentorship for his younger compatriot, who claimed to be on the receiving end of some savage Schumacher treatment during their time as team-mates. Speaking on his podcast Beyond Light in 2019, Rosberg said: “This guy, three years, Mr mind games.”One example, Monaco qualifying, there’s only one toilet in the garage. So he’s in the toilet, and I go down and it’s 10 minutes before. I know that I have my two-minute session now for the last pee and then jump in the car and go, qualifying.

“So I knock on the door cause the door is locked, and I’m like, ‘Nico here, please let me in.’ No answer, nothing. So I’m like knocking, knocking, no answer, nothing, locked. But I can hear that someone’s in there.

Not even team-mate Rosberg was safe from Schumacher’s savagery(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

“So here was Michael, in the toilet, leaning against the wall, looking at his watch, and he knew that as long as he made it out with three minutes to go, he could still just about jump in the car, put the seatbelts [on] and go. And I’m outside, full panic mode. And so I went for the oil bucket option in the corner.

“So I managed to do what I needed to do, but the panic had such an impact on my qualifying. Whilst I’m with my oil bucket, the door opens, Michael chills out, walks out. And as soon as he leaves from the corner, he starts walking faster because he knows it’s like two seconds to go until qualifying. These games, all day long – all day long.”

While many would argue he had enough natural talent to not engage in such gamesmanship, Schumacher certainly earned an advantage from his cheeky tactics. It’s an enigmatic personality fans have tragically not been able to see since his 2013 skiing accident, with his family keeping him out of the public eye to protect his privacy ever since.