Schumacher set to continue the quest for perfection (News Feature)

By Claas Hennig Dec 22, 2009, 22:36 GMT

Hamburg - No one has made a bigger mark on modern Formula One than Michael Schumacher, and few drivers have been as controversial.

Uncompromising, obsessed, perfectionist are some of the words that came to the minds of many of his rivals and quite a few erstwhile teammates. Reliable, generous and easy-going are some of the descriptions which come from those who are closest to him.

'I am not a person who likes to show emotions, apart to those who know me well,' the man from the German town of Kerpen near Cologne said of himself.

'I keep myself under control as well as I can, which perhaps doesn't give people the right picture of the sort of person I am.'

Just how much Formula One has been missing its once-dominant driver was demonstrated by the hype which surrounding his comeback plans for Ferrari at the end of last July - and also the disappointment which was felt when he had to call off the attempt two weeks later because of a neck injury.

Now comes attempt number two, and this time with Mercedes, an employer from his youthful days behind the wheel.

Schumacher, who will 41 in January, was first lured back by the opportunity of driving again for Ferrari, albeit as a replacement for his teammate Felipe Massa after the Brazilian's injury in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Since his last GP in Sao Paulo at the end of 2006, Schumacher had repeatedly declared he had never given any thought to coming out of retirement.

However since August, when he was forced to give up his attempts to warm Massa's seat, Schumacher has been less categorical on his future.

'I am happy, happy with the life I am living now, but who knows what what will happen in a few months or in a year,' he told the news magazine Der Spiegel in an interview in October.

That he has now decided to return to racing, to face the media scrutiny he so dislikes and to risk his reputation demonstrates his love for the sport, his eternal quest for a challenge and his desire for perfection.

Schumacher is a man who has to finish what he has begun, and the failed attempt at a comeback last summer may have affected him more than was thought at the time.

He has always been more admired than loved during his driving career. He was never a world champion who warmed people's hearts in the manner of the late Ayrton Senna. His dominance, with seven world titles and almost all other important records created a distance.

His reserved nature when appearing in public strengthened the impression of a 'racing robot'. He has been distrustful of journalists, always suspicious that a trap could be lying behind each question, and his answers as a result are often non-committal.

Privately though Schumacher is a man of harmony for whom friends and family come first. Resident in Switzerland since 1996, he enjoys a peaceful family life with his wife Corinna and children Gina Marie and Mick, and does much to support charitable projects.

'I am a normal father who plays with his children and does the things they like,' he once said, although magazine 'home stories' and pictures with his family are a taboo.

It is really only since retirement that people have begun to warm to Schumacher although he has only rarely given interviews during the last three years.

He has occasionally appeared in the headlines over the construction of a castle-like dwelling and for his not always successful endeavours at motorbike racing. Gala events and other VIP get-togethers have never been his thing.

Success and the wealth that has come with it has been achieved by hard work. In Kerpen, his father and his mother, who died in 2003, ran a kartracing track on which he began as a four-year-old to lay the foundations for his later racing career.

A trained car mechanic, he has never, despite his outstanding talent as a driver, stopped working hard to improve himself.

'I don't know a driver who is as physically and mentally fit,' Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo once said of his most successful employee. dpa ce bw gb

Sent via WebAccess by Whelan MEZ 22-12-2009_23:01