“I didn’t like my teammates!” But Ralf Schumacher names the one exception

Jenson Button was the one teammate that Ralf Schumacher was able to get along with.

The German driver admits he never wanted a relationship with any teammate throughout his 11-year Formula 1 career.

Giancarlo Fisichella, Damon Hill, Alessandro Zanardi, Button, Juan-Pablo Montoya, Ricardo Zonta and Jarno Trulli were the drivers who competed alongside Schumacher in the same team.

“I didn’t like my teammates, I have to say. Except for Jenson,” he admitted on the Formula For Success podcast.

“But I was difficult for my teammates because I didn’t want any conversation other than the set-up work we had to do with the engineers.

“The teammate was always the first one to be beaten.

“[Eddie Jordan] wanted the best from the drivers, and Frank Williams also wanted the drivers to be in a fight with each other, to achieve more for his team.”

Button and Schumacher drove for Williams in the 2000 F1 season together. Schumacher finished fifth, and his rookie teammate (who would go on to win a championship nine years later) finished eighth.

David Coulthard replied to Schumacher’s brutal view on his teammates: “I was a bit more naive when I first came to Formula 1. I’m from a village, it took me a while to understand what being in a team was.

“I had fallouts with all of my teammates.

“It’s a selfish world being a driver. You just think me, me, me, me…

“You want the latest engine, the new tyres. Your teammate is almost an inconvenience to the team’s focus of delivering for you.

“Frank loved you having a go. He was never angry if you crashed the car if he believed you were onto something amazing.”

Ralf never had the opportunity to become teammates with his legendary brother Michael Schumacher.

“It would have been amazing,” Ralf said. “There was never the opportunity.

“One of us would have always lost. I don’t know if that would have been good from a marketing point of view, or from a relationship point of view between brothers.

“It would have been amazing to have had a season together.

“It was always very open. I knew what he was doing, he knew what I was doing.

“It was good to talk to someone that you trusted.”