“Michael was antagonized”- Eddie Jordan reveals that Michael Schumacher was furious with him for not letting his brother win.
Michael Schumacher and Ralph Schumacher was among the only few brothers to ever race against each other. While Michael was set to register his name as the greatest of all time, Ralph was not near his brother’s might.
However, Ralph moment could have come, during Belgian Grand Prix 1998, Michael was seen at his worst in terms of temper when a collision with David Coulthard cost him the race.
Due to this, Jordan’s duo stood on the podium with Damon Hill, and Ralph finished on the podium. Eddie Jordan reveals that his instruction to Ralph for not competing against Hill for P1 infuriated Michael.
“Michael was antagonized. He was not happy. The person he was not happy with was DC (Coulthard). He went charging into the garage of DC, and he wanted to beat him up.” said Jordan in the Sporting Life podcast episode.
“DC was a clever old Scot. He kept his helmet on. The only person who was going to get hurt was the hands or the knuckles of Michael Schumacher.”
“The next person protocol was to come to find me. I genuinely thought he was coming to say well done; ‘I started with you, and here you are some years later, at the same venue, same place, where it all happened for me.’”
“But no. Not even a word of congratulations. All he wanted to do was try and beat me up for not allowing Ralf to win the race.”
A threat by Michael Schumacher
Jordan then said that Michael reached to him tell that his brother will never race for him, as the disappointment with the no-contest decision clearly reflected on Schumacher. In response, Jordan gave a cold response.
“He said clearly ‘he (Ralf) will never drive for you again.’ And I said, ‘perfectly fine, Michael. There’s a contract there. You can buy him out of his contract.”
But Michael was determined with his words too, and next year Williams signed Ralph, where he had the best time of his career.
