Michael Schumacher joke made on live Spanish TV as F1 pundit faces backlash

Mick Schumacher drives his father’s Ferrari F2003-GA in October

Spanish F1 pundit Antonio Lobato is under fire after making a joke on live TV about the condition of Michael Schumacher, who has not been seen publicly since suffering significant injuries in a major skiing accident almost a decade ago.

Schumacher is considered by many to be the greatest F1 driver of all time. The German won seven Drivers’ Championships in total, including five in a row with Ferrari between 2000 and 2004.

Just one year after retiring from the sport for a second time, Schumacher hit his head on a rock while skiing with his son Mick, sustaining serious injuries despite wearing a helmet. He was then placed into a medically induced coma for six months before returning to his home in Switzerland.

Schumacher has not been seen publicly since, and while little is known about the specifics of his condition, the 54-year-old’s son Mick has suggested that he is unable to communicate with his father.

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The F1 legend’s name came up during a discussion on Spanish TV after the Japanese Grand Prix. And Lobato is the subject of major backlash for appearing to make light of Schumacher’s condition.

After a fellow pundit said: “Let [Red Bull engineer] Adrian Newey be shaking because Antonio Lobato is coming,” Lobato himself responded: “Let Michael be shaking! Well… not Michael, he cannot shake.”

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The video clip has gone viral on social media, with some fans calling on the powers that be to prevent Lobato from covering F1 in the public eye.

Many of the sport’s former stars have spoken out on what it means to miss having Schumacher involved in race weekends.

“We have lost a megastar of our sport who gave so much enjoyment to a lot of people,” said three-time Grand Prix winner Johnny Herbert earlier this month. “It was very sad that Mick couldn’t have his dad around and it is sad that we as an F1 community don’t have him around the paddock. It is a shame.”

As part of a hard-hitting documentary on the F1 legend released by Netflix in 2021, Mick Schumacher said of his father: “I think dad and me, we would understand each other in a different way now.

“Simply because we speak a similar language, the language of motorsport. And we would have so much more to talk about. That’s where my head is most of the time. Thinking that it would be cool that would be. I would give up everything just for that.”

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