Michael Schumacher feared he’d die in F1 car and had insomnia after

Michael Schumacher harboured deep fears for his own safety following the tragic death of rival Ayrton Senna 31 years ago today. The German, now 56, faced sleepless nights in the wake of Senna’s fatal accident at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix – a tragedy that had a lasting impact on the sport.

Following closely behind Senna during the race, Schumacher was haunted with doubts about his ability to continue racing without succumbing to the same fate. In a Netflix documentary, ‘Schumacher’, an old interview is featured where the racing titan shares his immediate reactions after the crash. The seven-time F1 world champion recounted: “It was two hours after the race where (engineering director) Mr (Tom) Walkinshaw came up to me after the race and said it’s looking very bad.

He maybe misses one or two races and then comes back again. The worst was really the two weeks after this as I had to accept he was dead. The impact of the tragedy altered Schumacher’s entire outlook on his sport.

Silverstone, I went there (afterwards) and suddenly you see things with different eyes,” he reflected. “I went through Silverstone in a road car and just thought ‘this is a point you could be dead, this is another point you could be dead’.

“I thought ‘crazy, you always raced here but there are so many points you can crash and you can be immediately dead’ – that was the only thing I was thinking of.