{"id":283569,"date":"2025-07-22T21:59:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T21:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/283569\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T21:59:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T21:59:12","slug":"sebastian-vettel-recalls-the-f1-driving-question-that-even-michael-schumacher-could-not-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/283569\/","title":{"rendered":"Sebastian Vettel recalls the F1 driving question that even Michael Schumacher could not answer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Michael Schumacher won a record-setting seven F1 drivers\u2019 championships and acted as a mentor for Sebastian Vettel in his fellow German\u2019s four-time title-winning career.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Schumacher<\/a> and Vettel<\/a> were also the first Germans to win the F1 drivers\u2019 championship<\/a> and have to date only been joined by Nico Rosberg. The European country saw Schumacher earn their first world title in 1994, while Vettel later lifted his first of four successive titles in 2010.<\/p>\n

Benetton carried Schumacher to his first titles in 1994 and 1995, before the Hurth native left for Ferrari<\/a> and he returned the Scuderia to the summit with their first title in 16 years during the 2000 F1 season<\/a>. He also retained the crown racing in red in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004.<\/p>\n

Vettel won all four of his titles with Red Bull<\/a>, having become the Milton Keynes natives\u2019 first champion in the 2010 season and kept them atop the summit every term through the 2013 season. The two Germans also continue to rank highly in several statistical categories today.<\/p>\n

\"RedPhoto by Hoch Zwei\/Corbis via Getty ImagesMichael Schumacher couldn\u2019t answer Sebastian Vettel\u2019s request for help on how to master Suzuka\u2019s first sector<\/strong><\/p>\n

Schumacher and Vettel rank second and fourth for Grands Prix wins with 91 and 53 to their names. The pair also rank second and fourth for pole positions with 68 and 57, plus second and third for podiums with 155 and 122. Lewis Hamilton now leads in the three categories.<\/p>\n

Yet even though Schumacher took six of his 91 wins at the Japanese Grand Prix<\/a>, making the North Rhine-Westphalia native the most successful driver in the history of the Japanese GP<\/a>, he could not answer Vettel\u2019s question when the Heppenheim native started his career in F1.<\/p>\n\nDRIVER<\/strong><\/td>\nJAPANESE GP WINS<\/strong><\/td>\nJAPANESE GP POLES<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nMichael Schumacher<\/td>\n6x (1995, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004)<\/td>\n8x (1994, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nLewis Hamilton<\/td>\n5x (2007, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018)<\/td>\n2x (2017, 2018)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nSebastian Vettel<\/td>\n4x (2009, 2010, 2012, 2013)<\/td>\n5x (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2019)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nMax Verstappen<\/td>\n4x (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025)<\/td>\n4x (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n5 drivers<\/td>\n2 wins<\/td>\n\u2014<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Most successful drivers in the history of the F1 Japanese GP<\/p>\n

Having seen Schumacher seal six wins at Suzuka, Vettel sought to learn how his compatriot aced the iconic Esses. But while Schumacher could not help, Vettel would become a master of Suzuka in his own right with four wins \u2013 a tally only Hamilton has since eclipsed with five.<\/p>\n

Vettel told Auto Motor und Sport<\/a>: \u201cI remember calling Michael once. He had already retired. I wanted to know how he drove the first sector at Suzuka, because he was always so strong there. He replied, \u2018I don\u2019t know. What should I tell you now?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t describe to me in detail how he approached all the corners \u2013 only that he drove the section the way it felt right to him. He trusted that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Schumacher is the most successful driver in the history of the F1 Japanese Grand Prix<\/strong>\"FerrariPhoto by Martin Rose\/Bongarts\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Schumacher won the 1995 Japanese GP for Benetton, before winning at Suzuka for Ferrari in 1997 and en route to his drivers\u2019 titles in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004. Vettel later won the Japanese GP at the Honda-owned Suzuka circuit for Red Bull in 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013.<\/p>\n

Only Hamilton\u2019s five Japanese GP wins rivals the Germans, although Red Bull\u2019s current racer Max Verstappen is now rivalling them. Verstappen won the 2025 Japanese GP<\/a> for his fourth victory at Suzuka so far, having also won the race for Red Bull during 2022, 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n

Suzuka has staged the Japanese GP 35 times throughout the race\u2019s 39 appearances on F1\u2019s calendar to date, with Fuji staging it four times. Schumacher further showed his excellence at the track with eight Japanese GP pole positions, three more than any other driver so far.<\/p>\n

Vettel boasts the second-most poles at the Japanese GP with his five, yet Verstappen is now just one pole position away after scoring his fourth in a row in 2025. Ayrton Senna recorded three pole positions at the Japanese GP and Hamilton has taken two so far, for comparison.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Schumacher won a record-setting seven F1 drivers\u2019 championships and acted as a mentor for Sebastian Vettel in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,858,5909,24207,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-283569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-japanese-grand-prix","12":"tag-michael-schumacher","13":"tag-sebastian-vettel","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114899135050524570","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}