The Schumacher Dragon: Michael
In August 2009, when Michael was working towards a comeback, it was reported in a Chinese newspaper that he had ordered 3 "Chinese style" helmets. The article reported that Michael had said, "When I first went to China, a newspaper drew a dragon as my symbol." Later that year, he also spoke about this helmet in the lead up to ROC, which was held in Beijing that year.
However, the first glimpse of the dragon logo appears to have been in July 2004. At the German GP, Michael was seen with a temporary tattoo on his right forearm with the logo.
He would win the 2004 WDC two races later, at Spa. Following that at the Italian GP in Monza, the dragon would appear as a logo for the first time, on the back of his baseball cap.
The week after that marked the occasion of the first Chinese GP in Shanghai. It was here that the dragon logo would appear on his helmet for the first time. It appeared on the top of the helmet, temporarily replacing his seven stars, as well as on either side of the helmet.
This initial iteration of the dragon logo had, in addition to the large “力”, the character for “strength”, four characters - "迈舒马赫", which roughly translates to "Mike Schumacher". This would later be removed.
The dragon would not be seen on his helmet throughout 2005, but Michael continued using it on his personal merchandise. It featured both on the back of his cap, and also on his drivers shoes.
This continued into 2006, where it again featured on his caps.
However, Michael also opted to subtly incorporate the dragon back into his helmet design for 2006. This new design featured two large dragons, as well as the names of his family in Chinese (Mick “米克” and Michael “米克尔” on the right, and Gina “吉娜” and Corinna “科琳娜” on the left).
A special version of this helmet was commissioned for his final race for Ferrari, and to mark his first retirement, this time with the dragon and his family’s names featured in gold. It also included a list of his race victories around the top of the helmet.
During his retirement in 2007-2008, Michael was still frequently seen around the track in his new capacity as an adviser to Ferrari. He continued featuring the dragon as part of his personal branding.
Michael also tested for Ferrari during both seasons to help with development. During at least one of these testing sessions, Ferrari had it placed on the engine cover.
As mentioned earlier, Michael was planning a return to F1 in 2009 to replace the injured Felipe Massa, though that was ultimately called off due to a neck injury suffered earlier that year. However, pictures from when he was karting in August 2009 showed the “Chinese style” helmet he had planned to use. It was very similar to the helmet design he last used in 2006, but with details in white instead.
Michael made a return to F1 with Mercedes, driving with them from 2010 to 2012. He used pretty much the same helmet design throughout this time, with 2010 featuring the more subtle red version of the helmet:
And 2011 featuring more or less the same design in silver:
2011 was also Michael’s 20th year in F1. For this, a specially designed gold-plated helmet was commissioned and used at the Belgian GP.
He returned to the silver dragon for the rest of his time in F1, with the exception of one more custom helmet made to commemorate his 300th F1 race at the Belgian GP in 2012:
Michael also continued to feature the dragon on both his shoes and gloves, seen here in 2010 and 2011:
You’ll notice that for a brief period of time, Michael went back to the original iteration of the logo featuring the additional four Chinese characters, "迈舒马赫", translating to his name.
Although Michael retired at the end of the 2012 season, that was not yet the end of the dragon in motorsport. Michael used it one last time on his race suit at the Race of Champions in 2012, which he and Sebastian Vettel won for Team Germany.
Apparently a post is limited to 30 images, so on to Part 2: Mick!
Part 1: Michael | Part 2: Mick
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