“Mark, sometimes you go down a road and you can’t turn back”
My purest immediate literal most genuine fucking reaction to that:
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Explanation time!
So as some of you know I’m reading Aussie Grit currently and this is an actual quote from the book and it’s from no one else but Michael Schumacher himself.
At the 2006 Monaco grand prix, Michael made what one might call a rookie mistake during qualifying, preventing his rival Fernando Alonso from finishing his lap and beating his time for pole. Only it was not a mistake. To most people it was quite obvious that Michael did it on purpose as he did many times before (he did end up geting a grid drop for it) and Mark, being on relatively good terms with him, decided that he had a saying in the matter and approached Schumi later in Silverstone about it. Mark explained how he was disappointed with Michael’s actions which was actually really brave of him, and instead of jumping him this quote was what Michael said to him. Just this.
And it absolutely gagged me. We all know what lengths he was willing to go to to win, to achieve what he wanted but a lot of people forget that especially nearing the end he was very self aware of that as well and perhaps regretted it, even? For example, he was never much help regarding the GPDA but he did push Mark to become the director so in way… in a way he still cared he just knew he wasn’t fit for this kind of role. He understood his own mindset better than any of us I think. That it’s why it’s so crazy to me that he remained unchanged all through the years, from the 90s all the way to the Mercedes era. Almost as if he was just… stuck. Stuck in a mindset that consumed him entirely, that became a part of him. And he won a lot. But at the end the one thing he could not defeat was himself.
And obviously this doesn’t excuse anything he did but it does put it a little into perspective. His own brilliance that came at such a high price.
Eventually costing him everything.
