The secret meeting between Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve after controversial 1997 F1 season finale

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Michael Schumacher was never one to shy away from controversy in Formula 1 and the conclusion of the 1997 season was the perfect example of this.

Ferrari had just signed Michael Schumacher from Benetton the season before after claiming back-to-back world championships.

Schumacher watched on as Damon Hill – the man he crashed into during the 1994 season finale – won the championship for Williams in 1996.

Sir Frank Williams had already decided to drop Hill before the end of the season and replaced him with Heinz-Harald Frentzen to join Jacques Villeneuve in 1997.

Williams admitted dropping Hill was a mistake but his Canadian star was taking the fight to Schumacher next year instead.

It went down to the final race of the 1997 season at Jerez where Schumacher and Villeneuve could both win the championship.

Both Williams drivers and Schumacher set identical times in qualifying, but when Villeneuve tried to overtake the German, the Ferrari driver tried to push him off the track.

Schumacher was forced to immediately retire with Martin Brundle uttering the iconic line, ‘That didn’t work, Michael. You hit the wrong part of him, my friend.’

Villeneuve went on to win the championship and Schumacher was eventually disqualified for his actions, but speaking on the Autosport Podcast, Frank Williams’ son Jonathan has shared what happened next after the race.

Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve’s secret meeting after the 1997 F1 season

Williams recalls going to see Villeneuve in his motorhome after winning the 1997 championship and explained: “I’ve been in there for ten minutes just chatting and all of a sudden, somebody came in from Rothmans and said, Jacques, Michael’s here.

“Yeah, OK, yes, send him in. So, Michael and Corinna Schumacher came in and compared to sort of everything that had gone on on track and all of the talk that happened before and has actually happened after, it was an incredibly sweet and tender moment between the two main guys in that room.

“It was, “Well done,’ handshake, ‘Oh, yeah, it was a tough battle, sit down, have a drink with us.’

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“They sat down and they were there for about ten minutes and Jacques was typically dishevelled, Rothman’s denim shirt hanging out, cap and blonde hair, Michael was immaculate.

“And Jacques would say, ‘Hey, come on, take your hat off, relax!’, getting his baseball cap, putting it on the table and stuff.

“And it was almost as if two great competitors who were also the closest of friends, it was almost like a Peter Collins, Mike Hawthorn moment, you can imagine just how close they were.”

Jacques Villeneuve’s F1 career peaked in 1997 while Michael Schumacher went on to thrive

Villeneuve arrived in Formula 1 to much fanfare after winning the Indy Car World Series in 1995, but despite moves to BAR, Renault and Sauber, it never got any better than that 1997 season with Williams.

Schumacher and Ferrari on the other hand were in the ascendancy and only two fantastic seasons from McLaren and Mika Hakkinen – and a broken leg at the 1999 British Grand Prix – stopped the German from returning to winning ways.

That moment in particular was a low point for Schumacher and his old boss Ross Brawn said during the Race to Perfection document that his memory of the incident was very different from his point of view.

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“It was a mistake by Michael, he shouldn’t have done it,” Brawn said.

“Interestingly, when he came back into the pits, he had a completely different mental view of what had happened. It wasn’t until he saw the TV that he realised what had really happened.

“He came back to the pits and he was telling us, ‘We have to get Villeneuve disqualified,’ and I said ‘Michael, you really need to look at the TV because it really doesn’t look that way I’m afraid.’

“He looked, and he went quiet and realised that things hadn’t been quite the way he thought they were from the cockpit.”

Schumacher is still compared to modern F1 drivers given his legendary status, while Villeneuve spends more time being talked about as a pundit.

However, he’ll always be remembered for defeating Schumacher and surviving that iconic on-track moment.