Former F1 World Champion Michael Schumacher was injured while skiing five years ago. Photo / Getty Images
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Beware the malevolence of mundanity. Michael Schumacher's skiing prowess was well known to Formula One journalists, who would watch him tear down black runs around Madonna di Campiglio each January, at a winter retreat convened by Ferrari in the Italian Dolomites. And yet it was on a cut-through between two groomed pistes in Meribel, on a pristine morning five years ago today, where the German fell, hit his head on a rock and suffered a neurological injury that would rob him of the rest of his life.
It mattered not that he was wearing a helmet, or that he knew the vagaries of the Three Valleys ski region just as intimately as he did the chicanes of Monte Carlo or the Lesmos of Monza. The angle of impact was such that by the evening of Dec 29, 2013, his doctors at Grenoble Hospital were warning that the seven-time world champion had sustained catastrophic brain damage. Fans who remembered Schumacher as the indestructible Teuton, with 91 wins and no health dramas worse than a broken leg, dared to believe that his condition would still improve. But beyond a small coterie of family, friends and medical specialists, not a soul has seen him since.
The omerta is total. As Schumacher continues to receive care at his home in Gland, a vast and closely-protected mansion on the shore of Lake Geneva, Sabine Kehm, his spokeswoman, refuses any requests for updates. Several relatives, not least his brother Ralf, an ex-F1 star in his own right, and son Mick, a talented racer competing in F2 next season, are prominent in the public eye but shed little light. The theory is that wife Corinna, whose personal life Schumacher would ferociously guard during his career, wishes to do the same for him in these desperate times.
A tension has arisen, though, between the family's demands for privacy, exercised through Frankfurt lawyer Felix Damm, and the overwhelming public interest in Schumacher's situation. Stephan Weichert, a media professor in Hamburg, calls the conflict a "dilemma". But Willi Weber, the driver's former manager, has gone further. "I find it very unfortunate that Michael's fans do not know about his health," he said. "Why are they not being told the truth?"
No man can call himself a more fervent follower of Schumacher than Reiner Ferling. Based close to his idol's home town of Kerpen, near Cologne - where they would spend the odd evening together at his old karting track - Ferling is chairman of the official fan club, having cut a dash on the F1 scene since the early Nineties, by virtue of his extravagant headgear. He particularly treasures a picture of himself alongside Schumacher in his pomp, where he stands resplendent in a spangly red hat topped with a bust of his hero's bronzed, burnished head.
Since 2013, Ferling's efforts have been devoted to the meticulous curating of Schumacher's legacy. Today, on the fifth anniversary of that dreadful day in the French Alps, he and fellow fan-club members are in Gran Canaria, where they have created a sand sculpture of the man who remains their inspiration. Next Thursday, the occasion of Schumacher's 50th birthday, a party is being held in his honour at Kopi Eck, a German-run bar in Playa del Ingles, with readings and laudations galore. Messages from well-wishers will be burnt on to a CD and then sent to the family in Switzerland.
Ferling, for one, is accepting of the lack of any medical bulletins, believing that such a policy follows the instructions of Schumacher himself. "Our fan club has 3,500 members, and we respect the family's opinion," he says. "No one has acquired the right to a seriously ill person by buying a cap or a T-shirt. Michael is a perfectionist, he does not leave anything to chance. He would certainly have written down what should happen in 'Case X' as a precaution. At the appropriate time we will learn more, but until then, we grant Michael his peace. Michael has always protected his family. Now the family protect him."
What can be said with certainty about Schumacher's circumstances? We know that he regained consciousness six months after the accident, and that he is being cared for within the perimeter walls of his Gland estate. Anything else is essentially conjecture. Reports that he would be moved to a luxury compound in Majorca turned out to be misleading. Suggestions that he had learnt to walk a couple of steps were flatly denied. Unattributed recent observations in Paris Match - that "when you put him in his wheelchair facing the beautiful panorama of the mountains, Michael sometimes cries" - verged on voyeurism.
Details seldom emerge from his few select visitors. Ross Brawn, once Schumacher's technical director at Ferrari and now Chase Carey's right-hand man at Liberty Media, has been to see him. So, too, has Jean Todt, president of the FIA, F1's governing body, who says only that he wants to celebrate the "beautiful union" that the two enjoyed during their dominant era at Maranello. Bernie Ecclestone, so close to Schumacher that they played backgammon games together, did contemplate going, but resisted out of a desire to "remember Michael as he was".
Curiously, the only extended physical depiction of Schumacher post-crash has come courtesy of Georg Ganswein, a German prelate of the Catholic Church and personal secretary to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who stepped down in 2013. Archbishop Ganswein, who has acted as a spiritual guide to the Schumacher family, told Bunte magazine this month: "I sat in front of him, I touched him with both hands, and I looked at him. His face, as we all know, is the typical face of Michael Schumacher, only that it has become a little more puffy. He feels that around him there are people who love him, who care about him and, thank God, keep the curious public away. A sick person needs discretion and understanding."
Schumacher's sport still rallies around the cause of his convalescence. "Keep fighting Michael," is a popular slogan within F1, although it feels, dare one say it, a little trite, a case of grief by hashtag. After all, no one beyond that house in Gland understands exactly what Schumacher is fighting, or whether that battle can ever be won. But he stays uppermost in the thoughts of Toto Wolff, team principal at Mercedes, where he ended his career in 2012. "Michael is always present in my life," Wolff said. "For me he is the most outstanding racing driver of all, an incredible personality."
Arguably, it is the achievements of Lewis Hamilton, Wolff's superstar at the Silver Arrows, that help to keep Schumacher as a reference point. After Hamilton's emulation last season of Juan Manuel Fangio's five world titles, the German, alone on seven, is the sole figure left for him to chase. For all that he has won a staggering 51 of the past 100 grand prix', he is still 18 adrift of Schumacher's record haul of 91 victories. The farther one man strides towards history, the more his predecessor's feats are inscribed for posterity.
Not that anyone can usurp Schumacher in the mind of Ferling, his most dedicated supporter. For five years, he has done everything in his gift to keep the flame burning. He has mounted cards from around the world at the local karting circuit. With the help of the local football team, FC Koln, he has created a 40-foot banner emblazoned with the words "Gute Besserung, Michael" ("Get well, Michael"). "The banner was rotated 360 degrees by Koln's players ahead of a match against Schalke. That gave me goosebumps."
Even if the rest of the world needs reminding of Schumacher's place in the annals of sport, Ferling's passion will not waver. "In 20 years there will be new champions - that's just the passage of time," he says. "Michael's records could be broken by Lewis, but that's no problem for us. He always remains our champion."
Ferrari, in their own way, are mirroring such tributes. Next week, they are setting aside a wing of their headquarters in northern Italy for an exhibition marking his every accomplishment for the Prancing Horse.
"Michael 50" is the title and it is designed, the team say, as a "mark of gratitude". But there is inescapable sadness at how he is now spoken of as a person of the past.
We have reached a stage with Schumacher where no news is bad news. In multiple commentaries in the aftermath of the ski accident, Gary Hartstein, a consultant neurologist and long-time F1 doctor, argued that if no signs of improvement were reported after six months, then the prognosis for any progress beyond this was exceedingly bleak. "Agonisingly few patients in a minimally conscious state at six months ever wind up speaking, walking, dressing themselves," he wrote. It has now been five years, and there has been not a word of change in his state inside that fortified house.
Even his most ardent disciples, lacking any source of consolation from Schumacher's people, must move on as best they can. One way, perhaps, is through the son. Once, Ferling could set his schedule by Schumacher, flying around the world to catch his races. Now, he intends to do the same for Mick, Michael's eldest child, who could be a fixture in F1 as early as 2020. The symmetries between father and son are striking: the same pronounced jawline, the same outward calm, the same uncompromising racing style. In a sport built on dynasties, Mick's impending elevation to the elite promises to bring if not relief, then at least a sense of grace to a tragedy seemingly without end.
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