A close friend of Michael Schumacher recalled his relationship with the seven-time Formula 1 champion and shared some of his insights about the German.
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Richard Hopkins worked for a few years as Red Bull’s head of operations, but he grew closer to the multi-champion early in the driver’s career when he was at Benetton – with the team, he was a two-time champion in 1994 and 1995, before moving to Ferrari in 1996.
Before his great career success, Schumacher would meet with Hopkins for coffee in the motorhome and talk about on-track and off-track matters. “A great guy, you know, an incredible driver. A good and decent person,” recalled Hopkins, who worked as a McLaren mechanic at the time, to Crash.net.
“Obviously, he did some controversial things in Formula 1. When things like that happened, I always got a bit annoyed. More internally than anything else – simply frustrated because a lot of it was somewhat out of character for him. He was extraordinarily determined, had an incredible work ethic. Very focused on success and, I think, always walked a fine line between pursuing high performance, excellence, and race and championship victories, and sometimes that ambition probably overwhelmed him and he lost his head,” he continued.
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“He was extremely determined, had an incredible work ethic. Very focused on success and I think he always walked a fine line between pursuing high performance, excellence, and race and championship victories, and sometimes that ambition probably overwhelmed him and he lost his head.” “Whether it was the incident with Damon Hill in Adelaide, or with Jacques Villeneuve in Jerez, or even the incident in Monaco during qualifying, where he practically parked the car, all these things made us question,” he continued.
“Because if you really knew the guy, and everyone knew him as a decent guy off the track, seeing behaviors like those was simply disappointing. In a way, it became consistent with his personality, but at the same time incoherent, if that makes any sense,” he concluded.
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