Undeniably the most accomplished driver in the sport, Michael Schumacher, has had an atrocious run of luck this season, in comparison to team-mate Nico Rosberg who has already notched up one race victory in 2012. The lack of luck continued to plague Schumacher during Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix, after a collision with Bruno Senna.
Only moments after the Mercedes ground to a halt after slamming into the rear of Senna’s Williams, Michael Schumacher was heard calling the Brazilian an “idiot” over the team radio, before throwing his steering wheel out of the car in disgust with the situation. With the two coming together once before in their career, at last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix, it seems there is still no love loss between the pair as they both blame each other for the incident.
"I just took a minute to watch the video and if you look at the overhead shot you can see that he moves right to defend his inside position, but in the braking phase he moves back left right in front of me," explained Michael Schumacher shortly after the incident. "Then I tried to avoid to the inside again, but too late. Then it’s done because that’s in the braking phase. Very frustrating. Very much annoyed about that. We’ve had already a strange maneuver from him in Brazil last year and a lap before he had a get together with Grosjean, I don’t know what exactly happened there.”
However, with Schumacher firmly placing the blame on Senna’s shoulders, the Brazilian driver sees otherwise, and believes it was simply Schumacher’s fault for the incident.
"Of course he’s not going to say it’s his own fault, but at the end of the day he had much newer tyres than me, I was on very old rubber by then, so I guess our braking points were uneven for Turn 1," explained Bruno Senna, whose team-mate went on to win the race.
This incident is reminiscent of 1992, when a much younger Michael Schumacher slammed into the rear of Ayrton Senna, Bruno’s uncle, at Magny-Cours in France. Michael Schumacher and Bruno Senna, however, will be eager to carry on from this unfortunate coming together look ahead to the Monaco Grand Prix.
Follow me on Twitter - @AndyYoungF1