Todt: “Jerez 1997 and Monte Carlo 2006, episodes wanted by Schumacher. Michael made a mistake and paid with 2 titles”

Different thoughts after twenty years Qualifying for the 2006 Monte Carlo Grand Prix saw one of the most controversial episodes of Michael Schumacher’s career, as he parked his Ferrari at Rascasse in an attempt to prevent all the other drivers (starting with championship title rival Fernando Alonso) from beating his time. A pole position which, however, was canceled by the race commissioners, who penalized the German by relegating him to last place on the starting grid. The decision infuriated the then Team Principal Jean Todt, who acted as his driver’s ‘defense lawyer’, considering the maneuver to be the result of an involuntary error. Yet, twenty years after the incident, the French manager sensationally admitted how deliberate Schumacher’s action was in reality. The contact with Villeneuve A maneuver which also had strong repercussions on the fight for the world championship of that year, the German’s last in Ferrari, as well as the one that occurred in 1997. In that case, in an attempt to defend himself from Jacques Villeneuve’s attack at the Dry Sac curve in Jerez, the Ferrari driver swerved into the Canadian’s Williams, ending up in the gravel and suffering a disqualification from the Drivers’ championship: “The he rammed on purpose, and he did it badly – admitted Todt in an interview with High Performance referring to what happened in 1997 – Michael is an extraordinary boy, but every time he lost control he paid the consequences dearly. So it cost him the championship, like in 2006, in the Monte Carlo qualifying with Alonso, when he spun on purpose they cost him the championship.” Impulsive gesture Limited to what happened with Villeneuve, Todt is still convinced today that Schumacher’s maneuver was not premeditated, but was an impulsive gesture that the seven-time world champion carried out in an attempt to defend the leadership of the race at the moment in which he realized that the championship was slipping out of his hands: “It was just an emotion – he explained – that’s why, when you judge someone in action, you have to be very lenient. It’s easy to say at the table “you should do like this”, “you should do that”. But when you are in the heat of the action, you have to understand that the brain reacts differently. When he understood that he would lose the championship, because he had to be in front of Villeneuve, he made a mistake. He needed support. It was a wrong move, it wasn’t necessary.”