ETHICS
While both Schumacher and Hamilton were very fast, their track ethics differ vastly. Schumacher could be ruthless. He rammed Damon Hill during the 1994 Australian Grand Prix. Both drivers retired and Schumacher clinched his first world championship as Hill was unable to score any points. Three years later, Schumacher tried a similar maneuver on Jacques Villeneuve. This time it didn’t work and Villeneuve went on to win the title. Hamilton, as has been seen in his duels with Red Bull driver Max Verstappen this year, fights hard but fair. Hamilton will never deliberately ram another driver.
Schumacher had the luxury of being the No. 1 driver and his teammates often had to play a support role to the point where they sometimes had to cede the lead to him. Both of Hamilton’s teams — McLaren and Mercedes — treat their drivers as equals.
There were, especially during Schumacher’s Benetton years (1991 through ’96), rumors that the team was cheating. There has been none of that with Hamilton’s teams.
INJURIES
Schumacher raced cars from 1988 through 2012 (with a three-year hiatus from 2007 through ’09) and he was only seriously injured once. He broke his leg when the rear brakes failed on his Ferrari and he crashed into the barriers at Silverstone during the 1999 British Grand Prix. He missed 11 races that year.
It was a tragic irony that after he retired from racing Schumacher suffered severe head injuries in a skiing accident on Dec. 29, 2013. He has not been seen in public and his family refuses to comment on his condition.
Hamilton has been racing cars since 2001 — go-karts before that, of course, — and has never been seriously injured.
PRIVACY
When he was racing, Schumacher was a very private person, often refusing to divulge details of his personal life. Hamilton leads a very public life. Before the shutdowns caused by the pandemic, Hamilton would jet around the world, attending fashion shows and movie debuts.
Hamilton has 22.4 million followers on social media. Next on the F-1 list are Charles Leclerc and Daniel Ricciardo with about 4.7 million followers each.
Because of his skiing accident, people will never know what Schumacher would have done in his post-racing life. Hamilton, now age 36, will race for at least two more years. After that he has many plans, including designing clothes, working for Mercedes, acting and continuing his quest for diversification and to end racism.
Schumacher is married and has two children, including son Mick, who is in his rookie F-1 season driving for the Haas F1 team. Hamilton has never married but wants to do so after he retires.
HISTORY
Where does Hamilton rank in Formula 1’s historical records?
“He is ranked in terms of his record of (equaling) Michael’s level in terms of drivers’ world championships,” said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, a close friend of Hamilton. “And he’s the absolute record holder in pole positions and race victories. He cemented his position among the all-time best sportsmen in the world.”
Sebastian Vettel, who has won four world championships, finished third in last year’s Turkish Grand Prix and celebrated on the podium with race winner and newly crowned seven-time champ Hamilton.
“I told him it’s very special for us because we can witness history being made today,” Vettel said. But Vettel still ranks Schumacher over Hamilton.
F-1 records, however, are not that important to Hamilton.
“I think the numbers and the figures and the titles and all that stuff, it appears to mean more from the outside,” he said. “I remember watching the TV and watching Michael get the seventh and was like ‘Wow, that’s seven,’ but when you’re in it it’s different. We’re going to continue to fight for more championships. We’re going to continue to try and improve and continue to race and do what we love doing.
“So naturally matching an icon like Michael I would be incredibly proud of that,” Hamilton added, “but I think it’s more the message that it sends, hopefully, to people: You have to dream bigger than you think you can dream, and don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t go for that.”
Hamilton could clinch an eighth world championship this year, but Verstappen is also gunning for his first title.
Hamilton’s 98th victory in Spain this year moved him even further ahead of Schumacher’s old record of 91 wins. It was a record that many people thought would never be topped. So will Hamilton’s records ever be beaten? It will be many years before that question can even begin to be answered. But as Schumacher said: “Records are made to be broken.” n
All statistics are based on races that counted toward the official F-1 world championship that began in 1950.