15 June 2023 , 14:52
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Michael Schumacher had a "completely different" persona to what Formula 1 fans got to see on race weekends, according to one of his former colleagues.
The German remains, in the eyes of many fans, the greatest driver the sport has ever seen. His record of seven world titles can be matched only by Lewis Hamilton.
So there was much fanfare when he came out of retirement to help launch the new Mercedes team in 2010. The carmaker took over the Brawn GP team which had just won the championship the previous year.
Ross Brawn was team principal, which made it appealing to Schumacher given their success together at Ferrari. And he formed an all-German driver partnership with Nico Rosberg which was very appealing to the Mercedes brand.
Plenty of other familiar faces were on the books at the time, though some of them were yet to rise to prominence. James Vowles was one of them, now Williams team principal after many years with the Silver Arrows.
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During Schumacher's time with Mercedes, Vowles was a fresh-faced strategist. And a large impression was certainly left upon him by the seven-time world champion whose reputation preceded him.
Recalling their time together, Vowles described a man different to what the public perception of Schumacher has been. "I've worked with Michael – he was this incredible individual with an aura and a presence with him as well, completely different to what you see externally," he told the Sky Sports F1 podcast.
WIlliams chief James Vowles recalled his time working with Schumacher at Mercedes (Hasan Bratic/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)"What he is within a team is this person that is here to help us help the team move forward and brought the team really very close together. He knew everyone's birthdays, he sent flowers to prospective partners as required and really looked after individuals in a great way.
"But what it meant is the team were really pushing for him to be successful and that wasn't through any other mechanism, just being himself.
"What he was also good at is he knew that his performance perhaps was not quite at the same level but he made up for it in terms of the amount of work and dedication he put in and from that, Nico learned a lot."