Chaos about sports cars
Schumacher management criticizes reports about Michael’s Porsche – what the seller says about the allegations
In the best of company: The Porsche that Michael Schumacher is said to have driven is currently at Roock Sportsystem in Leverkusen.
© Elferspot
Racing legend Michael Schumacher is said to have secretly driven a Porsche. His management quickly denied the reports: The said Carrera GT is not connected to Schumi. As so often, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
The news hit the car scene like a bomb: Michael Schumacher is said to have secretly driven cars that he shouldn’t have bought during his active time at Ferrari, the high point of his career. Because his contract, although highly endowed, was tough: Ferrari prohibited Schumacher from being seen in public with vehicles other than a car from the Fiat group. No wonder: Schumacher was probably the best-known figurehead for Ferrari at the time, right after the Cavallino rampante (German: rearing little horse).
But his passion seemed stronger than the absolute loyalty to the contract: As from an advertisement on the Porsche marketplace “Elf spot“, his manager at the time, Willi Weber, is said to have bought the vehicle in 2004 and made it available to Schumacher. In an interview with the star Roock Sportsystem GmbH assures that the Porsche Carrera GT is accompanied by a letter from Weber’s company that confirms exactly that. “Weber probably even bought the Porsche with Schumacher’s money,” one assumes on the phone. Weber’s daughter Christina wrote the letter, and they did not want to send a digital copy.
Michael Schumacher management denied
Opposite is a Statement on Michael Schumacher’s Facebook website. There it says: “Recent reports have appeared in various media that give the impression that Michael Schumacher was the owner of a Porsche Carrera GT that is currently being offered for sale. This appearance does not correspond to the facts. Michael Schumacher was neither directly nor indirectly at any time Owner of this Porsche Carrera GT.”
This explanation apparently comes from Sabine Kehm, the manager of the Schumacher family, who brought Weber into the team shortly before the turn of the millennium and who stayed after the Schumachers broke up with the manager at the time.
Ultimately, however, the official statement does not exclude the information in the advertisement at all: Roock Sportsystem GmbH never claimed that Schumacher was the owner of the vehicle. On the contrary: “Elferspot” writes in a detailed portrait about the vehicle that only Weber is in the papers and that it cannot be proven how much Schumacher actually drove the vehicle. But it is said that he used it.
So it’s clear: ownership and a transfer of use are two completely different things, so the denial of the Schumacher manager is factually correct, as is the advertisement.
Weber and the Schumacher family are at odds
However, the statement on Schumacher’s social channels and the dealer’s reaction gives a deep insight into a rather dark chapter in the racing driver’s career. Because a few years after the joint successes, the friendship between Schumacher and Weber began to crumble. The reports on the two greats of Formula 1 read increasingly negatively after the career end at Ferrari, in 2010 Weber Sebastian Vettel publicly declared the “new Schumi”.
Weber’s handling of Schumacher’s tragic skiing accident finally hardened the fronts: In an interview with the star Weber only said last year that he “made a mistake” for which he “still blames himself”. What is meant is his reaction to the first news that his former protégé had had an accident. Instead of immediately seeking contact with the family, Weber wanted to wait for the first media hype and then form his own opinion.
Weber said: “I saw the scenes in front of the hospital in Grenoble on television, hundreds of people in front of the entrance. I didn’t want to queue up. At first I thought the reporting was exaggerated.” In retrospect it is clear: It was damn serious. And the Schumacher family apparently still hasn’t forgiven Weber for not coming to Grenoble immediately.
A matter of money
Perhaps that is why it is so important for the Schumacher management to publicly limit connections between Weber and the Formula 1 legend as much as possible. “As always, it’s about the money,” adds the seller of the Porsche Carrera GT, who remains certain that Schumacher was driving the vehicle. Finally, it says: “We will ask Mr. Weber to clarify the situation with a press release so that everyone knows what really happened to the Porsche Carrera GT.”
The final price of the car, even if it is already worth over a million euros without Schumacher, will depend heavily on such a reply. The fans react quite clearly to the message from the management on Facebook: They are more interested in an update on Schumacher’s health than in back and forth about a car. A reaction to this is unlikely to follow.