Famed F1 car designer and manager Ross Brawn has reflected on working with Michael Schumacher to help the German win his seven world titles.

Brawn played an instrumental role in all of Schumacher’s titles, having worked at Benetton and Ferrari during Michael Schumacher’s world championship-winning seasons.

Ross Brawn: There’s no one above Michael Schumacher

The German driver, who hasn’t been seen in public in over a decade since suffering a life-changing injury in a skiing accident in late 2013, turned 56 years old this week.

Schumacher’s name is frequently at the top of many lists when it comes to discussing F1’s GOATs (Greatest of all time), with Schumacher, Jackie Stewart, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Lewis Hamilton, Juan Manuel Fangio and, more recently, Max Verstappen the usual names to top the pile.

Schumacher is widely believed to have been the first driver to have applied the standards expected of a modern Formula 1 driver, in terms of fitness, work ethic, and diligence.

Applying these traits at Benetton in the early 1990s, Schumacher won the title in 1994 in his third full season in Formula 1, repeating the feat in 1995.

Ross Brawn, as technical director alongside designer Rory Byrne, helped Schumacher in his quest for his first titles and, with Schumacher jumping ship to Ferrari for a new challenge in 1996, both men followed the German across to the Scuderia to work under team boss Jean Todt.

Success wasn’t far away again, with Schumacher turning Ferrari into regular race winners almost immediately. A last-round defeat for the championship in 1997 was repeated in 1998, before an injury curtailed Schumacher’s 1999 season. But, in 2000, the pieces finally aligned again for Schumacher to win his third title.

He followed this up with an astonishing period of dominance – Schumacher and Ferrari won every title between 2000 and 2004. It made Schumacher the first seven-time F1 World Champion, a record that has since been matched by Lewis Hamilton.

Brawn, who had been technical director at Ferrari during this dominant run, became team boss at Mercedes between 2010 and ’13 and had the chance to work with Hamilton in the British driver’s first season with Brackley.

Speaking in an interview for Auto Hebdo’s Michael Schumacher collection, Brawn opened up on how he believes Schumacher and Hamilton share many of the same traits.

“Such a gathering of people of this standard, with a driver as exceptional as Michael, happens very rarely,” he said of his time with Ferrari.

“Not more than once in a decade. I’ve worked with Lewis who is another incredibly fast and talented driver, but with a totally different approach.

“He’s got the kind of notoriety you want, the kind of lifestyle you want on the fast lane, which is the opposite of the tranquillity Michael was looking for.

“But deep down, there was the same commitment, talent and desire. Just the approach was different.

“As far as I’m concerned, helping him win each of his seven world titles was just exceptional. There is nothing above Michael.”

First encountering Schumacher in F1 at Benetton, Brawn said he could see immediately that the young German had all the traits necessary to make it as a World Champion.

“The foundations were there, but you can’t rely on them alone,” he said.

“You also need talent, and his was enormous. The history of Formula 1 is full of drivers with a lot of talent… but who don’t know how to put it into practice. Clearly, Michael knew that.

“He was also in exceptional physical condition, with enormous powers of concentration and unparalleled commitment. He had all the necessary attributes. He didn’t have much experience of single-seaters because he had joined the ranks of Group C after F3, and he needed to learn, to gain experience, but he had this intelligence that enabled him to burn out the stages.”

Asked to define Schumacher’s greatest strengths, the now-retired Brawn said, “Let’s start with his speed.

“At the time, I was often praised for my qualities as a strategist, but I have to admit that Michael’s speed made decisions very easy. Today, everyone talks about Lewis and his ‘Hammer Time’.\

“Back then, we had our ‘Schumi Time’ because he was so capable of delivering a performance when it was needed.

“The typical example is the 1998 Hungarian Grand Prix, where he managed to complete 18 qualifying laps to win. When you have that kind of strength in a team, when you can say to the driver ‘This is the moment to perform’, anything becomes possible.

“Every time we’ve asked him to put in the effort now, he’s always replied: ‘Yes, I understand!’ When you know you can count on a driver who can do that, you know you have a huge advantage.

“When a driver has that kind of speed, it’s the foundation. Then there’s everything else: concentration, attention to detail, commitment, the ability to motivate the team… He had all that, and the physical condition to boot!

“These days, all drivers have a high level of physical preparation, but that wasn’t the case in those days. We had drivers fainting when they got out of the car or on the podium, whereas Michael was jumping like a goat. Physically, he set new standards.”