Silent treatment not helping Michael Schumacher’s plight

Michael Schumacher turned 48 behind a wall of silence. Three years after sustaining catastrophic head injuries in a skiing accident in France, none outside Schumacher’s inner circle knows anything about his condition.

 We know that his vast wealth, reputed to be £500 million, is put to use to the tune of £120k a week to give him some kind of life, but what the quality of his existence might be is a matter of guesswork. 

The family speak only through the filter of Schumi’s loyal press aide, former journalist Sabine Kehm, who delivers the same message in characteristically absolute terms: “Michael’s health is not a public issue and we will continue to make no comment in that regard.

“This is because we have to protect his intimate sphere. Legally seen and in the longer term, every statement related to his health would diminish the extent of his intimate sphere. We are aware that this may be difficult for some people to understand but we do this with full commitment to Michael’s guidelines and can only thank people for their understanding.”

 While we accept a right to privacy, the issue is not so clear cut when you are the most decorated racing driver in the history of Formula One, whose fame stretches to all corners of the globe.

Communion Of Automotive Souls

The means by which Schumacher made his living, the portal through which we came to know him was as public as it gets. 

Every wheel Schumacher turned was executed before an adoring audience measured in the hundreds of thousands at circuits and millions via live broadcast. From his first outing with Jordan at Spa-Francorchamps in 1991 until his last race for Mercedes in 2012, every twist and turn was a shared experience, a communion of automotive souls that was lovingly indulged. And then, since the accident, nothing. The tap is turned off.

While that satisfies the needs of the private individual it represents a painful rebuke to the millions invested in the heroic figure who culled a record seven world driver’s titles from 91 career victories, the majority in a Ferrari, which itself is an association that commits a man to another level of love and affection.

Morbid Interest 

The relationship between idol and fan is complex, conducted in a structured space (live event) that allows notional contact in defined circumstances. 

The hero is available for 90 minutes every fortnight and thereafter passes into the virtual world of fandom, where the idolatry has no end.

This kind of relationship is not something from which you can just back out. People still wanted to see Vladimir Ilyich Lenin after his death. Still do, hence the queues around his mausoleum in Red Square.

 It is not some morbid interest in a body long since passed that keeps them coming but profound interest in an extraordinary figure who influenced world events. Within the F1 orbit Schumacher was a player of similar stature, a game-changer who set the sport on a different path, set an agenda that others followed.

 It is in part his historic importance that fuels our continued interest in him, a degree of devotion that deserves something greater in return. None is asking for Schumi’s home to become an exhibit. We don’t expect a turnstile to be fitted to his door so that we might intrude upon his suffering. We don’t even need to see a picture. But something more than the repetition of the privacy line is not unreasonable, surely.

Window Of Improvement 

The launch of the the Keep Fighting Initiative last year has become a mechanism for talking about Michael without talking about him. While this kind of development is an excellent way of recognising the role Schumi played in the sport and the lives of his many millions of followers it is no substitute for a genuine understanding of his lot. 

We know his condition is desperate. The science tells us that the window of improvement in severe head trauma victims is two years, after which the patient at best remains on a plateau. 

Because of the lack of any meaningful detail we are left to speculate about Schumacher’s condition, which promotes its own grim feeding frenzy. Witness the desperate toting of photos of the incapacitated Schumi around news organisations by a ghastly speculator at the end of last year. 

The asking price was $1 million. Or we inflate and exaggerate the fragments let slip by those in the inner circle who might episodically let go a titbit.

Glorious Past

So when Ross Brawn, Schumi’s old mentor and team principal, who sat on the pit wall for everyone of his championships at Benetton and Ferrari and later brought him out of retirement to Mercedes, expresses the hope that one day Michael might be back among us on the basis of a flicker of improvement, it hardens into a fact that he is on the mend.

Whatever his condition, such is Schumacher’s standing and importance to the global motorsport community, and beyond, it is incumbent on his guardians to respect that relationship, and his glorious past, by being a tad more forthcoming about his condition and his prospects. 

This would not constitute a violation of his rights and at the very least you wouldn’t have to read laments like this every time a birthday passes. And please, let there be many more of those.