{"id":396907,"date":"2026-01-07T06:27:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T06:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/396907\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T06:27:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T06:27:21","slug":"f1-rewind-how-michael-schumacher-nearly-faced-attempted-murder-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/396907\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 Rewind: How Michael Schumacher nearly faced attempted murder charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On This Day \u2013 January 6 \u2013 in 1998, Michael Schumacher came close to legal strife after his controversial <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/series\/single-seater\/formula-1\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Formula 1<\/a> title-deciding collision the year previously.<\/p>\n<p>The climax of the 1997 season at Jerez saw Schumacher come together with Williams\u2019 Jacques Villeneuve, in a contentious manoeuvre that decided the championship.<\/p>\n<p>Schumacher was adjudged to have deliberately attempted to take out the Canadian in the collision, in which the Ferrari came off worse, retiring on the spot.<\/p>\n<p>Villeneuve finished third, which was enough to see him defeat the German and take his one and only Drivers\u2019 Championship.<\/p>\n<p>Schumacher felt the full force of the FIA, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/results\/1997\/drivers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stripping him of all his points that season<\/a>, and subsequently admitted to his wrongdoing that it described \u201cdeliberate but not premeditated\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Michael-Schumacher-Jacques-Villeneueve-1024x576.webp.webp\" alt=\"Michael Schumacher admitted to a knee-jerk attempt to take title rival Jacques Villeneuve out of the 1997 F1 title-decider in Jerez\" class=\"wp-image-234624\"  \/>Michael Schumacher admitted to a knee-jerk attempt to take title rival Jacques Villeneuve out of the 1997 F1 title-decider in Jerez<\/p>\n<p>Ferrari was allowed to keep its second place in the Constructors\u2019 Championship, but the incident added an additional blot on Schumacher\u2019s copybook in the eyes of many, the incident coming three years after his collision with Damon Hill at the Australian Grand Prix, for which he received no punishment, winning the first of his seven titles.<\/p>\n<p>But the matter did not initially end there. With Schumacher no doubt wishing for the dust to settle between then and the kick off of the 1998 season, the matter went further.<\/p>\n<p>German authorities explored the possibility of whether the incident would necessitate criminal charges, which were potentially on coercion and attempted murder.<\/p>\n<p>The idea was quickly quashed and Schumacher was free to race, once again taking the title down to the wire, losing out to Mika Hakkinen at the final round at Suzuka.<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/2026\/01\/06\/valtteri-bottas-to-drive-ferrari-f1-car-in-special-one-off-appearance\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Valtteri Bottas to drive Ferrari F1 car in special one-off appearance<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On This Day \u2013 January 6 \u2013 in 1998, Michael Schumacher came close to legal strife after his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,806,805,803,804,847,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-396907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-motor","12":"tag-motor-sports","13":"tag-motosport","14":"tag-motosports","15":"tag-schumacher","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}