MICHAEL Schumacher’s ex-teammate has shared a health update on the Formula One great revealing he doesn’t know he’s a seven-time World Champion.
It was reported earlier this week that Schumacher is no longer bed bound 12 years on from his horror ski accident and can now sit up in a wheelchair.
Little has been publicly disclosed about the 57- year-old’s recovery from a head injury sustained while on holiday in the French Alps in 2013.
Now, it’s been revealed that he has been sitting up for years but doesn’t know that he’s a seven-time F1 champion, according to his former teammate Riccardo Patrese.
Patrese, a six-time F1 Grand Prix winner and 1992 World Drivers’ Championship runner-up, became close with the F1 legend after he arrived at Benetton in 1992.
The pair remained friends even after the Italian retired the following year.
Patrese told Hochgepokert that he started hearing positive updates on Schumacher’s condition around six years ago.
He told the outlet: “I had this news, via a friend, that he was improving and improving. But I never met him after the accident.
“I never went there, so it’s only talk that he could sit, watch and look around and make contact with his eyes.
“After the first improvements, I think my knowledge about his health was that he was in the situation that they described this week. He’s in his own world, but he recognises people around him, familiar faces. I am sure he does not know he is a seven-time world champion.”
Schumacher is still cared for around the clock by his wife Corinna and a team of medical staff.
But his progress means he can be wheeled around his estates in Majorca and close to Lake Geneva.
Patrese continued: “I think from this point of view of course Michael is now living in the way that he is with a lot of effort from the family. I think in this kind of situation, it is a treasure for the person that they love.
“Even with the condition he is in, they like to have him and care for him and love him. He’s still with us and we can only hope that he will get better.
“We are really hoping, every day he is doing a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. I’m very happy to hear that Michael is improving but from what I know of this situation nothing has changed for some years.”
Patrese also revealed the moment he heard about Schumacher’s accident and realised it was serious after trying to get in touch with him.
He later spoke to Corinna and offered to go and visit in an effort to try and “wake him”.
The Italian said: “We were very good friends. And then it was Christmas time. I heard about the accident. Nobody knew how bad it was. So, I sent a message on his telephone, ‘Everything okay, Michael?’
“Unfortunately, there was no answer. I knew at once the problem was big and so in that moment everything changed and that was the last contact I made with him.
“I did offer to help to see if it would help if I went to see him. I tried, yes, if they wanted me to help, I could be there. But they preferred to stay alone.
“From the time of the accident, I said to Corinna, ‘Do you want me to come and maybe try to talk and see if he can wake up and so on?’ And she said to me, ‘Don’t worry, Riccardo.”
“I understood that they didn’t like to have anybody around apart from a few trusted people like Jean Todt and Luca Badoer as well, because he was a very close friend to Michael in the time that he was testing for Ferrari when they were a winning team.
“Apart from these people I think nobody could have come closer to Michael. We had good times together till the last moment.”
At the start of the month his daughter shared a rare photo of the whole family before the accident on Schumacher’s birthday, showing the young family smiling with the caption: “The best forever. Happy birthday papa.”
