VARIOUS FILE: MOTOR RACING - Seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher prepares for his final Grand Prix

Record ID: 595941

  • Title: VARIOUS FILE: MOTOR RACING - Seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher prepares for his final Grand Prix
  • Date: 23rd November 2012
  • Summary: BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (JULY 26, 2009) (REUTERS) (CONVERTED 4:3 MATERIAL). EXTERIORS OF HOSPITAL WHERE MASSA BEING TREATED
  • Embargoed: 8th December 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: South Africa, Hungary, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom
  • City:
  • Country: Hungary South Africa Italy United Kingdom Germany
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVAC0C8N8QBM867FW0RRJGI3ENIX
  • Story Text: Michael Schumacher, the most successful Formula One driver, retires from F1 for good at the end of the Brazil Grand Prix on Sunday (November 25) having won a record 91 Grand prix races.
    Schumacher has won more Formula One races than any other driver, amassed more points and climbed on more podiums in his 19-year career.
    The German will be hanging up his helmet for the second time. He quit after the 2006 season, again in Brazil, when Finn Kimi Raikkonen took his seat at Ferrari.
    After winning his first two championships in 1994 and 1995 with the Benetton team, Schumacher moved to Ferrari and took five back to back championship wins with the red car in 2000-2004.
    During this time he had intense rivalries with drivers like Mika Hakkinen of Finland, Canadian Jacques Villeneuve, Damon Hill of Great Britain and Spain's Fernando Alonso.
    In 1997 he was disqualified and his second place in the championship table was erased after the season-ending European Grand Prix. Schumacher was judged to have collided with the car of Jacques Villeneuve - the only other competitor who could take the championship win - by dangerous driving. Villeneuve continued to take third place and the title. Schumacher's car retired.
    He returned in 2009, after a spell racing motorcycles, to drive for Mercedes but it was not a success, yielding just one podium in three years. His place will be taken for 2013 by Lewis Hamilton.
    In 2009 he visited his former Ferrari team mate Felipe Massa in hospital, after the Brazilian had been hit on the head by a metal part dropped from another car during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
    For the future, Schumacher has said that he is looking forward to partnering Sebastian Vettel, as a German national team, in the end of season Race of Champions event in Bangkok, Thailand and he has told the organisers he would like to continue to race in that event in the future.
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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