F1’s greatest ‘what if?’ – The Michael Schumacher debut that almost went to another driver

Michael Schumacher’s career-making drive at Spa in 1991 almost didn’t happen, had another driver felt a little bit braver.

Schumacher made his F1 debut in a now infamous appearance at the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix, in a one-off drive for Eddie Jordan’s eponymous team, but it could have been a very different story had Bernd Schneider taken a career risk.

Bernd Schneider opens up on Jordan F1 drive snub

Four-time DTM Champion Bernd Schneider failed to move fast enough to take the Jordan seat available for that weekend in Belgium, a seat which Michael Schumacher slotted into as Jordan needed a quick replacement for Bertrand Gachot following the French driver being jailed for an altercation with a taxi driver.

That weekend turned out to be the making of Schumacher, a rising star of the Mercedes sportscar programme, as he qualified seventh for his debut race. While his Grand Prix came to an early end on the first lap with a busted clutch, Schumacher had done enough to convince Flavio Briatore of his potential, and he was signed to the Benetton team for the following race.

But Schumacher’s debut race might not have happened had former Zakspeed F1 driver Bernd Schneider moved just a little quicker when the opportunity to drive arose.

Schneider had raced for Erich Zakowski’s Zakspeed team in 1988 and ’89, but failed to make any impression in the underpowered backmarker team. Indeed, so poor was the Zakspeed that Shneider only started nine races across the two years, due to an inability to get the car qualified.

By 1991, Schneider had already largely moved on from F1, having started to build a career in the IMSA series with Porsche, but then the call from Eddie Jordan came.

“Jordan called me, ‘Hey, Bernd, you can drive at Spa, 300,000 bucks,'” Schneider recounted on an episode of Beyond the Grid.

“I was already on the plane to the US, because I had two double races in the US. And he said, ‘You have to come back, and you can drive it, but you have to pay 300,000. I made the same offer to Schumacher, the one who pays first gets the drive’.”

Schumacher’s backing from Mercedes, with whom he raced through the Sauber sportscar programme, meant he could answer Jordan more quickly.

“Mercedes guaranteed the money to him,” Schneider said.

“It was not Wili Weber [Schumacher’s manager]; he made the deal. But Mercedes said, ‘Okay, if you’re not finding the money, we’re going to pay for it’.

“Unfortunately, I was not so unhappy, because I was a bit scared. If I’m not performing well in the Jordan at Spa, maybe I’m out of everything, because I could not do the race in IMSA with Porsche, and then maybe I lose the drive there.

“And if I’m not performing well as Michael did, I also have no cockpit afterwards. So I was a bit scared, and this was the reason I answered him a few days later, and then Schumacher was already confirmed.”

Schumacher was driving for Zakspeed’s DTM team, which was in partnership with Mercedes, using a 190E, at the time of the Jordan call, and it was Schneider who was then called upon to step into the seat vacated by his compatriot’s move into F1.

This proved the start of a hugely successful partnership between Shneider and Mercedes, immediately becoming a frontrunner in the series before winning the title in 1995.

“Michael did DTM in those days. Michael replaced the French driver, and he did four DTM races with ZakSpeed Mercedes in those days,” Schneider said.

“So then Michael signed the contract for Benetton, and he could not drive any more DTM.

“Norbert Haug [head of Mercedes motorsport] called me and said, ‘Hey, can you replace Michael and DTM for the last four races?’

“Because I was contracted to Porsche and to Ford, I asked them for permission to drive for Mercedes. They said, ‘No problem, you can do the last four races in DTM’.

“I came back to ZakSpeed again, and I did quite well. Mr. Haug said, ‘You have to stay with us, and I won’t let you go. I won’t let you drive the Porsche again’.

“He was a close friend of Manfred Winklehock, and he said, ‘I don’t want you to get hurt, or something happens, you’ve got a wife and, yeah, don’t do this anymore’.

“Then he pronounced me at Hockenheim that I was going to drive for Mercedes.”

More on Michael Schumacher and F1 history

Michael Schumacher accident: Separating facts from fiction 12 years on

How ‘complete b*stard’ Eddie Jordan and a jailed ex-driver became friends again

Bernd Schneider: I just didn’t have the confidence

It wasn’t the first time Schneider’s path had crossed paths with Jordan. During the 1990 season, Schneider had been invited to visit the Jordan factory as the Irishman prepared to enter Formula 1 with his team, with an eye to signing the German driver.

“He saw me in Formula 3, but I’d not raced in the UK,” Schneider said.

“I raced the German championship, but I did the European Championship in Silverstone, and I also did Macau. I finished third in Macau [in 1987].

“EJ was convinced because he followed my career. I mean, he was very clever. He knew what he was talking about.

“He also gave you a good feeling, he said, ‘Come on, I want to have you, because you are good’.

“All the other people I was talking to said, ‘How much money do you have? It doesn’t matter how good you are, it’s just depending on the money you’re driving or not’.

“But Eddie was different. Of course, he wants to have the money, but on the other hand, he said, ‘I think you’re good, I’m convinced we can achieve something special’.

“This gave me, personally, a good feeling. But I was in his workshop, and he showed me like hell, in a good way.

“I never heard words like that before; my English was not like today. But I said, ‘Eddie, I cannot sign this contract’.

“It was two contracts, one for driving Formula 1, which was 5 million bucks I had to pay, and another side was with him, personally, as a management contract.

“I have it still at home, a management contract for 10 years!”

Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust.

Asked how much Jordan had been looking for from Schneider’s salary, he said, “It was only 20 per cent, but he also said in there that, if I couldn’t pay him, I could pay him in the next years. So if I owed him two or three million bucks and I wasn’t Lewis Hamilton, I’d have to pay him back the rest of my career!

“So all the money I made would now be Eddie’s, and I was really scared to sign it!”

In the end, Schneider was also overlooked for this opportunity.

“He took Andrea de Cesaris, because he had a $5 million budget from McLaren, with Bertrand Gachot, so a young driver with the experience of Andrea. It was quite good for him, bad for me,” he said.

“So I signed a contract with Joest Porsche, and I raced in IMSA.”

While Schneider went on to carve out a hugely successful career in motorsport, F1 never fell into place for him, and the fact that it was one of his contemporaries who leapt at the chance and became the dominant force in F1 within a few short years meant there have been some regrets for the now-61-year-old Schneider.

“I was really disappointed, especially when Eddie called me, and I did not say immediately, yes, I’m going to do it,” he said.

“I was not brave enough; I just did not have the confidence to get it together.

“I was in the US. I had a good race. I finished on the podium, but my eyes were on Spa, and I watched Michael and said, ‘F**k’ to what he achieved.

“Maybe I could have done it as well, and I could have had a good entry back in Formula 1.

“But then I said, ‘Okay, now it’s just over. I don’t want to look back anymore’.

“I had to look forward, and I have to make the best out of that. But this was a really disappointing moment in my life.”

Read Next: How ‘overpaid’ F1 driver lost his motivation in ‘burnout’ Sauber season