It's been 10 years since legendary seven-time F1 world champion Michael Schumacher was severely injured in a skiing accident in the French Alps.
Since then, his wife Corinna has been fiercely protective of her husband's condition. The family have made no official comment.
His son, Mick Schumacher, has already been in and out of the sport his dad once dominated, and had to deal with the enormous pressures of being a Schumacher in motorsport without his Dad's guidance.
FOLLOW LIVE: Summer of Tennis, United Cup day three
READ MORE: 'A proper wheelman': Fastest man in motorsport dead at 56
READ MORE: 'What a joke': Proteas' huge call 'the death of Test cricket'
Information has come cryptically in drips and drabs from the select few allowed to see him.
His former Ferrari boss, Jean Todt, said the crash on December 29 of 2013, had "consequences".
Eddie Jordan, who gave Schumacher his start in F1 back in 1991, said Corinna now lives "like a prisoner" in her own home, staunchly protecting Michael's privacy.
Jordan said Corinna has barely left the house in the past decade "because everyone would want to talk about Michael".
Even Schumacher's brother Ralf, who himself raced in F1 throughout the 2000s, doesn't know of Michael's condition, and barely has contact with Corinna or anyone else in the family.
Corinna has been equally praised and condemned for her commitment to upholding Michael's privacy.
The argument against her largely surrounds his enormous public profile. Schumacher was one of the most recognisable names and faces not just in F1 or motorsport, but in sport generally at the turn of the millennium.
Given a skiing crash injured him in a way a 300km/h head-on collision with a wall could not, it's natural interest in his recovery or otherwise is enormous.
So desperate is the world for answers, a German magazine ran an AI-generated interview.
Die Acktuelle ran a front-cover spread boasting an exclusive interview with Schumacher, and only mentioned at the very end of the story the interview was fake.
The editor of the magazine was unsurprisingly sacked, and the family rightfully sued.
Jordan said the "fascination" with the Schumacher story is it "has not had an ending yet".
The argument for protection is that she has the right to do as she feels is best for her family, even if that means shutting off from the outside world and dedicating herself to Michael.
The closest the world has come to an answer was in a Netflix documentary on Schumacher's career in 2021.
Corinna and other members of the Schumacher family were interviewed, but their comments were very carefully worded to give little away.
Their words more or less confirmed the general consensus Schumacher was not in a lucid state, but Corinna did reveal the couple "do therapy".
"Michael is here. Different, but he's here, and that gives us strength, I find," she said.
"We're together. We live together at home. We do therapy. We do everything we can to make Michael better and to make sure he's comfortable. And to simply make him feel our family, our bond.
"And no matter what, I will do everything I can. We all will."
And Mick, who had to navigate the incredibly difficult path to F1 without the best ally any driver could have ever hoped for.
Mick drove for the cellar-dwelling Haas team in 2021 and 2022 before he was sacked by the team.
He remains a test and reserve driver for the Mercedes team, but given Lewis Hamilton has indicated a desire to remain on the grid for years to come, and George Russell is a long-term option, he has no clear path for a return to the grid.
"I think Dad and me, we would understand each other in a different way now, simply because we speak a similar language – the language of motorsport – and we would have much more to talk about," he said.
"That's where my head is at most of the time, thinking that would be so cool. I would give up everything just for that."
Mick was only 14 when he and Michael were descending the Combe de Saulire in the French Alps.
They were in an off-piste (unprepared) area between two marked and maintained runs, when Michael fell and hit his head on a rock.
Despite wearing a helmet, Schumacher suffered a serious head injury. Physicians at the time said he would have been killed had it not been for the helmet.
Michael had only retired from F1 for the second and final time 12 months earlier.
He spent three months in a medically-induced coma in a nearby hospital. He was lifted from the coma in the following April and moved from France to another hospital in Switzerland.
He moved back home in September.
And so began a state of perpetual mystery surrounding one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.
It seems unlikely an update on his condition will ever come, and it's difficult to know if such an update would really end the world's fascination with his condition.
Either way, it seems closure will only come with his eventual death.
If he wasn't an enigma when he was racing, he certainly is now.
Corinna said the Schumachers are "trying to carry on as a family".
"(That's) the way Michael liked it and still does. And we are getting on with our lives," she said.
"'Private is private', as he always said. It's very important to me that he can continue to enjoy his private life as much as possible.
"Michael always protected us and now we are protecting Michael."
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.