APRIL 10, 1995

Schumacher's lucky escape

Michael Schumacher was lucky not to have drowned while on holiday between the Brazilian and Argentine Grands Prix.

Michael Schumacher was lucky not to have drowned while on holiday between the Brazilian and Argentine Grands Prix. The German took his entourage to the Brazilian resort of Salvador in the Bahia region where a diving expedition nearly turned to tragedy. Schumacher was diving with his personal trainer, a local diving instructor and the manager of the hotel at which he was staying. His girlfriend Corinna Betz and his manager Willy Weber stayed onboard the diving boat with its crew while the four divers went in search of a reef. While they were underwater, the boat drifted, while those onboard failed to notice.

When the four divers surfaced, the boat was on the horizon and Schumacher spent an hour swimming to reach the boat to alert them to the problem and send the boat to pick up the other three exhausted divers.

Schumacher's heroic rescue did, however, manage to deflect adverse publicity over his run-in with the FIA over weighing in Brazil. The German continued to insist that he did gain 17lbs over the winter months - without it being in the least bit visible - and then managed to lose 12lbs in just 48 hours.