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Jordan veteran: Had to slow down “Schumi” during test before Formula 1 debut

Andy Stevenson remembers Michael Schumacher’s first test for Jordan and reveals how the future record champion impressed him even then.

The story of how Michael Schumacher amazed the Formula 1 paddock when he made his debut at Spa in 1991 is well known. However, Andy Stevenson, now sports director at Aston Martin, got a taste of it a few days earlier.

In the Beyond The Grid podcast, the 57-year-old, who was already part of the Jordan team at the time and has remained loyal to the Silverstone-based team to this day, even after several sales, recalls a test a few days before the race in Belgium.

The test, Schumacher’s first for Jordan, took place at Silverstone, but not on the Grand Prix version of the track, but on the shorter southern circuit. According to Stevenson, they had the track to themselves at the time because everyone else was already on their way to Spa.

“He drove lap after lap and got closer and closer to our lap record on the south course in just a few laps. And then he drove faster than we ever did on the Silverstone South Course,” Stevenson recalls.

Schumacher was so fast during the test that former team manager Trevor Foster had to slow him down over the radio. “And Michael said on the radio: ‘I haven’t even started yet!’ Then we went to Spa,” Stevenson grins.

How “Schumi” finished his own seat

What makes Schumacher’s test even more astonishing is that some people on the team, including Stevenson himself, didn’t even know the German. “We didn’t know anything about him, nothing at all. We had heard that he had done a few sports car races and also a few races in Japan,” he reveals.

“But we didn’t really know him,“ says Stevenson, who recalls his curious first encounter with Schumacher at the Jordan factory. ‘Eddie [Jordan] came into the factory and said to some of us, ’I want you to stay late tonight’.”

Teamboss At the time, Jordan is reported to have said: “You can’t talk about what you’re doing, but we have a driver coming to us and we need you to adjust the seat.” The driver in question was Schumacher, who also showed up at the factory shortly afterwards.

Stevenson did not recognize the German at first and only later found out who he was. “My first impression was that I was jealous that this guy was allowed to drive the race car. But he was fantastic to work with,” he grins.

“He said [late that evening], ‘Listen guys, I was a bit late, so if you want to go home, I’ll finish the seat.’” And so the future record world champion personally finished his first Formula One seat in the Jordan factory.

Schumacher at the limit, but not over it

Later at Spa, the impression that Stevenson had already gained of “Schumi” at Silverstone was confirmed. “It was the first time he had been at Spa. He told us he had raced there. But he had never been there before in his life,” he recalls.

With this legendary lie among Formula One fans, Schumacher’s career officially began. In qualifying in Belgium, the German was immediately more than half a second faster than his much more experienced team mate Andrea de Cesaris.

“There wasn’t much data that we could evaluate,” recalls Stevenson, adding: ‘I think we had three sensors on the whole car back then, so it was just a matter of the driver’s feedback and the lap time.’

But even back then, there was a sensor on the accelerator, and Stevenson reveals: “For us, it looked like he was going beyond [the limit]. But for him, he was right on it, so always right on the limit, but completely in control, very calm and very confident.”

Overall, Schumacher provided “very, very good feedback” and was “extremely fit,” which was not standard at the time. “The cars back then were monsters. There was no power steering. They had huge tires, huge wings, so the G-forces were high,” Stevenson said.

“The effort required to turn the steering wheel was enormous. But that didn’t bother him,” he recalls. Schumacher’s Formula One racing debut on Sunday was then over after just a few hundred meters with a damaged clutch.

It would be his only race for Jordan, but the start of a great career.

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