Gachot’s rage led to Schumacher ’s debut

In 1990 Formula One driver Bertrand Gachot had a fight with a taxi driver in London, spraying him with a canister of CS gas that he just happened to have on him at the time of the incident. He was charged with assault causing actual bodily harm. While awaiting court he won the Le Mans 24 hour race. But, a week before he was scheduled to race at

Spa in the Belgian Grand Prix, he was sentenced to 12 months in prison. The Jordan-ford team replaced him with a hotshot 23-year-old German driver named Michael Schumacher. The race took place on August 25, 1991, giving Schumacher his muchdesired F1 debut. He didn’t win but he was signed with the Benetton team and would go on to win 91 Formula One races, with seven World Drivers’ Championship titles.

Schumacher’s career ended with his retirement in 2012, but in 2013 a skiing accident left him in a coma.

Michael was born in 1969 in in West Germany. By the time he was old enough to get his licence, in 1983, he was on his way to being a champion in competitions across Europe. In 1984 he was the junior karting champion of Germany. That attracted an offer of sponsorship and he became part of a professional karting team working with Adolf Neubert. He left school and took a job as a mechanic. In 1988 he began driving in the Formula Ford competition, in which he came second, and the newly introduced Formula Konig series, coming first.

He raced with the team formed by Willi Weber, who became his manager. In 1990 Schumacher won the F3 Macau Grand Prix, coming down toward the finish line in front of Mikka Hakkinen who crashed his car after making a misjudgement. Schumacher took an unusual path, driving for Mercedes in the World Sports-prototype Championship, a high-profile sports car competition. The strategy worked, gaining him an offer from Jordan-ford to race for them at Spa in Belgium in 1991, to replace Gachot. But during the race he was let down by a mechanical problem. Benetton still came knocking.

He finished 1991 at 14th in the driver’s championship, but in 1992 he was third. In 1994 he won the first of his seven F1 titles. He retired in 2006, returning in 2010, but never achieved the same heights before retiring in 2012.