Michael Schumacher’s accidental private bar as former ‘Top Gear’ producer shares wild story

Andy Wilman, the former executive producer of hit shows such as ‘Top Gear’, ‘The Grand Tour’ and ‘Clarkson’s Farm’, recalled the wild story of interviewing Michael Schumacher in Italy.

Schumacher’s plush hotel where he was staying was the scene. Wilman was able to get the hotel’s bar closed especially for the interview, as Schumacher proceeded to take advantage of what had inadvertently become his private bar, allegedly speaking of Mika Hakkinen being “often faster”, and addressing his controversial collision with Jacques Villeneuve.

Michael Schumacher revels in rare bar opportunity

Wilman harked back to the Schumacher interview, which was conducted for the former BBC programme ‘Speed’.

Schumacher was one of the sporting stars to appear in the episode titled ‘Superstars of Speed’.

“Schumacher, favourite driver,” Wilman declared on the Midweek F1 podcast.

“Jeremy [Clarkson] and I made this TV series called The Science of Speed [sic] for BBC, and it was all science department stuff, and each episode was different aspects of speed, and one is about people, so obviously he [Schumacher] had to be in it.

“So Ross Brawn gets us the interview with him. We go to Mugello, and he’s testing, and it’s the week before he goes to Japan to finally win the World Championship for Ferrari. A lot on his plate.

“And I remember, if there’s one team testing, you don’t have to pay Bernie [Ecclestone] any money to film at the track. We get there and they go, ‘We need another 10 grand off you’, because there’s a young kid in a Sauber in a last-minute test. He’s called Kimi Raikkonen, and they’re testing him out, and they don’t think he’s got enough experience to do F1.

“Remember, he got that provisional Super License. But he’s there. We don’t know that.

“Anyway, we meet Schumacher, and we said, ‘We want to talk to you back at your hotel’. And his manager, Sabine [Kehm], says, ‘Yeah, I’ll give you half an hour. We’ll do it back at the hotel when he’s finished testing’.

“So I go back to the hotel with a film crew, and it’s a businessman’s hotel in Mugello. I go up to the manager and I go, ‘Can we shut your bar for a few hours while we do an interview?'”

“No,” was the clear reply which Wilman got.

“And we were like, ‘It’s with Michael Schumacher, who is staying with you’. And his face was like, John Cleese, Basil Fawlty. He went, ‘Moment…’, and then just ushers everyone out of this bar. Everyone’s lobbed out. Shuts the bar. We set it up. We film with him, and he’s really lovely, and he talks about anything.

“He says [Mika] Hakkinen is often faster than him. He talks about smacking into Villeneuve and why he did it, and that sort of stuff.

“And then Sabine, his manager, is going, ‘Shh, it’s 40 minutes now, wrap it’.

“So we all wrap up, and we start packing everything up, and he doesn’t move. And we’re like, ‘What’s going on?’ And he’s like, ‘How long does this bar stay shut?’ And I was like, ‘Well, until we’ve finished’. And he went, ‘So nobody can come in here while you’re in here?’ I was like, ‘No’. He went, ‘I’ll have a beer then’.

“Then he had another, like, half an hour. We slowed down our packing up, and he said, ‘You’ve got to understand, in Italy, I can’t go anywhere, because I’m like, world’s highest-paid traveling salesman. I have dinner in my room. Ring my wife, and that’s it. Now I can be in a bar’.

“And we just adored him.

“Then Bernie wouldn’t give us the footage, when we cut the interview together for Villeneuve and him. Bernie’s like, ‘That’s old news, son. Dead and buried. It stays in the vaults’.

“Then he rang back later on, he went, ‘I’ve changed my mind. You can have it. I just need a fax from Michael saying it’s okay’.

“So we ring his other manager, Willi Weber, who goes, ‘I’m with Bernie. That stuff is the past. It’s ancient history. But, I will ask Michael’.

“Then Willi Weber rings back, and goes, ‘Michael went, No, I gave him the interview. I don’t want to watch it again on telly, to be honest, but I did give him the interview’. So, he signs the fax. We liked him!”

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Schumacher was among the F1 icons to appear on the show which Wilman formerly executively produced, ‘Top Gear’.

Schumacher’s fellow seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton also featured, twice, with the likes of Sebastian Vettel, Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill, Jenson Button, Raikkonen and Daniel Ricciardo also stopping by.

So, Schumacher is Wilman’s favourite F1 driver, but his favourite F1 driver appearance on Top Gear was that of Vettel.

Vettel came on Top Gear in 2011 and proved a hit with the audience. His impression of Mansell, in particular, won him over with Wilman.

Apparently, Vettel learned it from Adrian Newey, the iconic F1 designer and his former Red Bull colleague.

“Well, Vettel was the funniest,” Wilman reflected. “If you’ve ever seen the show, when he does his Nigel Mansell impersonation, it’s spellbinding. And Adrian Newey taught it to him, and then that egged him on to do it.

“We were like, ‘Oh, he’s German. This is going to be a bit sh*t’. And it was pitch perfect. He was so funny.”

Vettel would to the customary ‘F1 Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car’ lap around the Top Gear test track. All drivers set their time in the Suzuki Liana. Vettel’s 1:44.0 placed him fourth on the final leaderboard, one topped by ex-Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo.

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