Michael Schumacher once paid $1 million to examine his own Formula 1 team-mate’s contract – for a genius reason.
Schumacher won seven Drivers’ Championship titles between 1994 and 2006, driving for the Benetton and Ferrari teams.
After retiring from F1, he had three seasons out of the sport before a second stint with Mercedes in 2010 and 2012 that only brought mixed success.
The German, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a skiing accident in 2013 and has been recovering in private since then, still holds the record for most titles won alongside Lewis Hamilton.
It will come as no surprise, therefore, that Schumacher was the team leader at both Benetton and Ferrari during his years of dominance and would find clever ways to keep comfortably ahead of his team-mates.
Johnny Herbert claimed in his autobiography that, as the second driver at Benetton in 1995, he would be banned from analysing Schumacher’s data during the season.
And back in 1993, Schumacher had a clause in his Benetton contract that stated no other driver could earn as much money as him as his team-mate – apart from Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell.
Before the start of the new season, Benetton signed Riccardo Patrese, who had finished second behind dominant team-mate Mansell in the 1992 standings while driving for Williams.
The start of the season did not go well for the Brazilian as he recorded just two points finishes in his first 10 races.
And amid tensions with Benetton team principal Flavio Briatore, Patrese entered talks with McLaren and their team principal Ron Dennis over a drive for 1994.
During those talks, Dennis found out that Patrese was earning $3 million per year at Benetton – a substantially higher wage than Schumacher’s $2 million.
He subsequently approached Schumacher’s camp with that information, in the hope of potentially attracting the German to sign for McLaren in 1994.
But the German’s entourage instead simply paid Benetton $1 million to receive a copy of Patrese’s contract, before using it to negotiate a better deal to stay with the team.
That decision paid off, with Schumacher going on to win the 1994 Drivers’ Championship – his first – with Benetton.
McLaren, meanwhile, endured a horror season. Having lost Ayrton Senna to Williams, they made the switch to Peugeot engines but encountered nightmare reliability issues.
The new deal also put paid to any hopes that Schumacher would sign for McLaren in the following years, even when Mercedes – who supported the German during his junior career – partnered with the British team from 1995.
Ferrari then came calling at the end of 1996 and the rest was history.
McLaren and driver Mika Hakkinen did beat Schumacher to the 1998 championship by 14 points, while they were also successful over his team-mate Eddie Irvine in 1999, who became temporary Ferrari team leader while Schumacher recovered from a broken leg suffered at Silverstone that ruled him out of title contention.
