Michael Schumacher’s family feared Ralf’s furious ex-wife Cora could reveal the top-secret state of his health… but even recently out ex-F1 star admits he’s lost contact with stricken sibling: Inside the brothers’ relationship

Being Michael Schumacher’s brother might have proved trying at the best of times for any younger sibling in the shadow of the Formula One legend. But attempting to bear the mantle while competing in the same sport? For his younger brother Ralf, the task was a challenging one. 

But despite having a lot to live up to, Ralf was able to maintain his strong relationship with his superstar brother, and even make history alongside him, as the first sibling duo to both win F1 races.  

Bonded together through a childhood passion for karting, Schumacher would prove his younger sibling’s ‘mechanic and mentor’, as well as the ready source for advice throughout his F1 journey. 

The brothers’ strong ties would be tested, however, not just on the track, but after the life-changing accident suffered by Schumacher in the French Alps over 10 years ago. 

Here, Mail Sport takes a look at the brothers’ close, competitive relationship – and how things have unravelled in the wake of Schumacher’s fateful skiing tragedy. 

Playing catch-up in karting 

Six-and-half when his younger brother Ralf was born, Schumacher had already been karting for two years at his father Rolf’s track in the West German town of Kerpen. That year – 1975 – the prodigy would win his first club championship, and six years after that, Schumacher secured a Luxembourg karting licence to circumvent more stringent German laws and begin racing at the highest possible level. 

Understandably, Ralf was already playing catch-up, beginning his own foray into karting a year before Schumacher had years earlier. 

But for the younger brother, his elder sibling was an invaluable source of knowledge and support. 

‘He was my mechanic and my mentor,’ Ralf said in an interview with Sky Germany in 2023. ‘Those are wonderful memories.’ 

Schumacher won the Germany Junior Kart Championship a year after obtaining his home country’s licence, in 1984, and later quit school to focus on racing full time after securing the European title too, working as a mechanic alongside his commitments on the track. 

Helping with Ralf’s development was a side project, Schumacher shared in a joint interview the pair sat down for with FOX in 2000. 

‘We spent a lot of time together in karting,’ he told the interviewer. ‘I used to be his mechanic, and I used to be quite often upset when he wasn’t there helping me to clean the go-karts, or running around with his friends.

‘But,’ Schumacher – then seated next to his brother on duty as Formula One drivers – added, ‘he has developed and obviously matured a lot.

‘Talking about learning – you see the results. You must say he learned very well.’  

As the younger Schumacher progressed through the karting ranks, he did so without the possibility of encountering his older brother. But that would be an entirely different story in the upper echelon of motor racing – F1. 

‘Little Ralf’ versus Schumi the Superstar 

By 1997, when Ralf arrived in the sport, Schumacher once again had the head start – and it was a significant one. Having started out at Jordan, the German’s move to Benetton in 1991 saw him win back-to-back world championships just three years later, before his landmark move to Ferrari. 

Despite suffering a shaky season before due to his Prancing Horse’s reliability, Schumacher was undoubtedly one of the biggest names in the sport. To heap even more pressure on the younger brother’s shoulders, Ralf had taken a circuitous route to the top table, featuring in Formula Three, Masters of Formula 3, GT500, and Formula Nippon before signing for Jordan. 

Ralf’s career was managed by Willi Weber, who had scouted his brother almost 10 years earlier, and the younger Schumacher was always honest about the role his brother had played in shaping his career. 

‘You have to be that honest. (My connection to Michael) opened doors for me, of course,’ Ralf said in F1-Insider in 2021. ‘Would I have ended up in the Opel Formula 3 works team without my brother? Hardly likely.’

But, he added, it came with a responsibility to live up to his billing.  

‘I won the race in Macau, which is known as the F3 World Championship. I won the hard-fought Formula 3000 championship in Japan in 1996, which was not easy for a foreigner,’ he continued. 

‘So I took the chance that I was given and I think that was why I deserved my entry into Formula 1 because of my performance. 

‘But unfortunately not everyone could understand that I was my own brand and didn’t just want to be the little brother of the big champion.’ 

Although a young driver at 22 on his debut, compared to Schumacher, Ralf’s youthfulness was heightened, and he was often referred to by commentators as ‘Ralfy’, ‘little Ralf’, or even ‘Baby Schumi’ in a nod to his brother’s famous nickname. 

Towards the end of his two-year spell at Jordan, relations has declined between Ralf and the constructor, as the driver struggled to obey team orders and play ball with his team-mate and former champion Damon Hill. 

After he left the team for Williams in 1999, Jordan’s commercial director Ian Phillips suggested that Ralf’s talent was being hampered by his desire to outdo his sibling. 

‘His biggest problem is that he wants to get there too soon,’ Phillips told Motoring News. ‘That’s the problem with being Michael’s brother. He wants everything that Michael’s had. 

‘He believes he’s equally talented, if not better. And who knows? He’s certainly very fast.’ 

Fast he may have been, but in the first two years he had only picked up three podium finishes – against the backdrop of 18 retirements. 

Meanwhile, Schumacher was in the midst of a revolution at the Italian team, helping Ferrari win Constructors’ Championship in 1999 and challenging hard to recapture his mid-1990s glory. 

But the breakthrough for both brothers would come at the dawn of the new millenium. While Schumacher’s historic career would far outstrip his younger sibling’s, the pair began sharing the podium with some regularity, including three times in 2000. 

They later made history as the first sibling duo to record a 1-2 finish at the Canadian Grand Prix in 2001. 

‘It’s always a nice feeling,’ Ralf said of sharing a podium with his brother in 2000, ‘especially when you know that both family members were in a good position and able to fulfill their targets for the weekend.’

Schumacher added that knowing that Ralf had succeeded – but crucially not beaten him – ‘gives an extra pleasure’ to a race win. The brothers shared 16 podiums in total during their F1 racing lives. 

Not that the entirety of their parallel careers were entirely without incident. The duo were no strangers to competing fiercely against one another, and were notably involved in a smash-up at the Luxembourg Grand Prix that all but torpedoed Schumacher’s chance of winning the 1997 world championship. 

But the brothers’ relationship stayed strong, with Ralf stressing in 2024 that he would have loved to have driven for the same constructor as his brother, and how important it had been ‘to talk to somebody that you could trust’ while competing in the cutthroat ‘Piranha Club’. 

When it came to overall glory, however, their records were without compare. Ralf stepped back from F1 and his then-team Toyota in 2007 with a respectable six wins to his name. His elder brother? A titanic 91, and seven world championships, a number yet to be bettered. 

Schumacher’s fateful accident 

After stepping away from the dangerous and high octane world of Formula One in 2012, few could have predicted the tragic fate that awaited Schumacher in his retirement. 

Just one year later while on a family holiday at the French ski resort Meribel, the seven-time world champion embarked on a seemingly routine skiing excursion with his then 14-year-old son Mick when disaster struck.

While descending the highly popular Combe de Saulire route, Schumacher opted to venture off-piste, entering into a small sliver of uncombed powder between Piste Chamois and Piste Biche that was peppered with small rocks. 

Schumacher was a highly adept and committed skier – his skill was such that he had a run named after him at the Italian resort of Madonna di Campiglio, where Ferrari hosted its annual winter retreat. But despite the relatively gentle gradient and the short distance of the off-piste section, a hidden danger was lying in wait. The snowfall had concealed some of the boulders from view, turning the powder paradise into a minefield.

Schumacher’s skis clipped one such boulder and the sudden force catapulted him into the air – leaving him powerless to avoid a head-first collision with another rock.

The impact was devastating. Schumacher’s helmet absorbed much of the force, but the severity of the accident cracked the hard shell and fractured Schumacher’s skull, leading to a traumatic brain injury.

The sporting icon has remained hidden away from the public eye ever since, with Schumacher’s health journey over the past decade shrouded by an almost impenetrable veil of secrecy.

Having been placed into a medically induced coma, he underwent two brain surgeries, surviving both against all odds, but remained in critical condition for the first few months of 2014.

Moved in June from the hospital in Grenoble where he had first received urgent care, he then travelled to Lausanne University Hospital for continuous rehabilitation. Months later, he left the facility in September, for the £50million Schumacher family home in Gland, Switzerland, on the banks of Lake Geneva where he is believed to have resided ever since.

Despite a worldwide outpouring of grief and support in equal measure following Schumacher’s accident, his wife Corinna, whom he married in 1995, has insisted on total secrecy over his condition.

The rule has been faithfully observed by Schumacher’s loved ones, friends and wider entourage, who believe the racer and his immediate family deserve privacy to maintain his dignity.

None but a trusted few are granted access to his bedside amid strict security protocols, which have inevitably given rise to a number of rumours over Schumi’s condition.

Ralf has admitted that the accident has seen him gradually lose contact with his brother and Corinna, but he gave an emotional interview last year which saw him lament the ‘unfair’ circumstances that changed Schumacher’s life irrevocably. 

‘I miss the Michael of the old days,’ Ralf admitted. ‘Life is unfair from time to time. Michael was very lucky throughout his life. But then there was this tragic accident.

‘Michael wasn’t only my brother. When we were kids, he was also my coach and mentor. He taught me literally everything about kart racing.

‘There may be an age gap of seven years, but he was always by my side. We raced together, we practised overtaking manoeuvres and everything that matters in motorsports. I had the honour to learn from the best.’

Adding that ‘nothing is like it used to be’, Ralf continued, saying: ‘Life is unfair at times. That day held a lot of bad luck. This fate has changed our family.’

But as uncle to Schumacher’s children – racing driver Mick and Gina-Maria, Ralf shared in a German magazine that even seeing them, ‘(his) heart smiles.’ 

‘If someone in the family is looking for my advice, I’m there,’ he added. ‘They go their own way.’ 

Ralf and Cora Schumacher’s roiling feud – and concern over Schumi’s secrets

On the heels of his own retirement, after flirting with the idea of becoming a team principal, Ralf instead focused on becoming an entrepreneur and popular Formula One pundit. 

But recent personal circumstances have seen the 49-year-old hit the headlines with increasing frequency, on the heels of coming out as gay in July of this year. 

Ralf posted a picture of himself with his business manager Etienne Bousquet-Cassagne, with the caption: ‘The most beautiful thing in life is when you have the right partner by your side with whom you can share everything.’

The surprise announcement from the former driver turned entrepreneur and pundit was met with a torrent of congratulations and well-wishes from fans and members of the motorsport community.

The 49-year-old was previously married to Cora Schumacher, a former Playboy model and ex-GQ cover star, for 14 years before the pair separated back in 2015.

But while his son David – who is also a motorsports driver – threw his public support behind his father, Cora appears to have struggled publicly with the news. 

The former driver has since claimed she found out about her ex-husband’s relationship over social media and believes she was psychologically manipulated by the F1 star during their marriage.

‘I wish Ralf had included me or at least let me be part of his decision. It would have been a sign of respect,’ she told Der Spiegel, via Marca.

‘During his career in F1, there were many rumours in the paddock. I asked him to clarify if what was being said was true, but he always denied it, telling me that I was imagining everything and that maybe I needed psychological help.

‘When he announced it, it was like a stab in the heart. Coming out always affects those around you, including the ex-wife with whom you had a child.

‘Today I feel used during the marriage. I feel like I’ve wasted my best years. I ask myself many questions. Was he honest with me?… I trusted him blindly and that’s why his word was law for me.’

But a former friend of hers has claimed that Cora met Bousquet-Cassagne over a year before the public announcement, and that the pair had ‘got on really well’. 

Ralf added fuel to the fire last week when he branded his former partner ‘a liar’ and published screenshots of messages sent between her and Etienne which appeared to show her offering her congratulations to the couple, in a move that Cora has branded ‘pathetic’ and ‘illegal’. 

In the messages, Cora appears to say ‘congrats’ and ‘so happy for you both’ as she tells Etienne that she was told he had got married to Ralf due to them wearing rings on their right hands. 

The conversation ends on good terms as Cora says ‘I’m happy for you guys’ – the antithesis of her sentiment in the Der Spiegel interview – while Etienne says ‘thank you Cora’.

Ralf published a screenshot of the conversation on WhatsApp as proof that Cora was being dishonest about her shock and grief over his relationship with Etienne.

‘With all the back and forth, I would like to make it clear that Cora congratulated us in September 2023 because she thought we had gotten married,’ he wrote in the Instagram post.

‘As you can see from this message to Etienne personally. I think it’s a shame for Etienne and me that she spreads so many lies. We both just want to be left in peace.’

With no sign of the argument slowing down, Tuesday saw Cora’s mother Ingrid Brinkmann take her daughter’s side, doubling down on the claim that Ralf had told them he wasn’t gay. 

Brinkmann even shared details of their couple’s marital sex life, stressing that Cora had become pregnant with David ‘quickly’ and ‘without artificial insemination’.  

There were concerns too from inside Schumacher’s close family over Cora’s relationship with their family, ahead of her featuring in Jungle Camp earlier this year. 

Ralf’s former partner pulled out of Germany’s version of I’m a Celebrity… three days into filming, and while the official line from broadcaster RTL was that she left voluntarily, BILD suggested it was down to the ‘pact of silence’ surrounding Michael’s condition.

Alleging that the TV network has an agreement with the family, the tabloid claimed that the ‘program’s producer breathed a sigh of relief after her departure’ in case she revealed anything about Schumacher’s condition.

Cora has previously claimed to be close to Corinna, and David and Mick are close through their racing careers – although Cora and her son are estranged and have been for some time. 

However, Cora herself insisted that there is no ‘pact’ of silence, writing on Instagram: ‘If I don’t say anything against my family, or ex-family, it has nothing to do with anything other than respect and loyalty to the family. If I wanted to, I could say it, but I don’t.’