Richard Hopkins, Red Bull’s former chief operating officer and friend of the driver, says Michael Schumacher’s family should keep the seven-time champion away from the public. In an interview with SPORTbible, he said he did not think the German would be seen again, almost 11 years after the skiing accident left him out of the spotlight and shrouded in absolute secrecy.
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– I don’t think we’ll see Michael again. Hopkins, who met Schumacher in the early 1990s, when he was working as a McLaren mechanic, said: “I feel uncomfortable talking about his health because of the secrecy which the family wishes to maintain for justifiable reasons.”
Hopkins confirmed that he is not part of the group closest to the German, made up of names such as Jean Todt, Ross Brawn and Gerhard Berger, who regularly visit the former driver. – Even if you showed Ross Brawn a lot of wine, I don’t think he would open up. He said: There is mutual respect between those who visit Michael and those who do not share anything with him.
Schumacher (56 years old) lives between his family’s mansion on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland and a property in Mallorca. Wife Corinna leads the care routine and strictly protects her husband’s privacy. Since the accident, little information has reached the public, and it is believed that the former pilot requires intensive medical monitoring.
The family also faces parallel battles. Three people have been found guilty of trying to extort £13 million through intimate photos and videos stolen from the former pilot’s home, material that included more than 900 images, hundreds of videos and medical records. Part of the files were stored on hard drives and USB devices. However, one of the hard drives was never recovered, and prosecutors say they don’t know if it was destroyed or distributed.
The famous Ferrari that was owned by Michael Schumacher, the historic Formula 1 driver
Details of the F 355 GTS (1996) Blue Le Mans
Markus Fritsch, who worked for the family, was identified as responsible for passing the records to Yilmaz Tuzturkan and his son, who threatened to publish the material on the dark web. Fritsch received a two-year suspended prison sentence, which Schumacher’s family deemed “shamefully lenient”.
Despite attempts at intrusion and speculation, the family maintains the position adopted since 2013: preserving the privacy of the former pilot and restricting any disclosure of information about his health. For close friends like Hopkins, that situation is unlikely to change.
– Even if I knew something, the family would be disappointed if I told them – he summed it up.