Schumacher takes to the stage

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It's 25 years ago to the day that Michael Schumacher made his first appearance in Formula One, driving for Jordan at the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix.

Schumacher was sitting in for Betrand Gachot, who had been jailed for assaulting a London taxi driver the previous year. His team-mate Andrea de Cesaris was meant to show Schumacher the circuit but was held up with contract negotiations, so Schumacher learned the track on his own by cycling around the track on a fold-up bike he had brought with him.

He impressed the paddock by out-qualifying his team mate, lining up in seventh place on the starting grid which matched the team's season-best starting position of the season. Unfortunately the race did not go so well, and Schumacher retired on the first lap of the race with clutch problems.

Benetton quickly swooped on Schumacher, and despite an agreement in principle between Jordan and Schumacher's Mercedes management that should have see the German driver racing for the Irish team for the rest of the 1991 season, he instead switched teams in time for the next Grand Prix at Monza, and would go on to claim two world titles with the squad in 1994 and 1995.

#KeepFightingMichael

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.