Michael Schumacher had a ‘reputation’ for possessing one F1 weakness Max Verstappen has perfected

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The 2025 Formula 1 season highlights that even the greatest drivers have their faults.

Max Verstappen won’t look back at the Spanish Grand Prix fondly, after his rash collision with George Russell potentially cost him a fifth consecutive championship.

Lewis Hamilton’s start to life at Ferrari couldn’t have gone much worse, struggling to adapt to F1’s most iconic team.

Verstappen consistently suggested he didn’t regret his clash with Russell, and the level of performance he showed during the final 10 races of the campaign showed that he’s still a level above all of his rivals right now.

The Dutchman is trying to catch Hamilton and Michael Schumacher when it comes to the number of F1 drivers’ championships.

Schumacher is another driver who went through stages of his career, like Hamilton and Verstappen, when he was simply unstoppable.

However, the seven-time world champion did have one Achilles’ heel that one of his greatest performances in Formula 1 highlighted perfectly.

READ MORE: Everything to know about Michael Schumacher, from F1 career to net worth

Michael Schumacher developed a ‘reputation’ for being a ‘bad starter’ in Formula 1

The 1996 Spanish Grand Prix is considered one of Schumacher’s best-ever wins in the rain.

It earned Schumacher the nickname ‘Regenmeister’, which translates to ‘Rainmaster’, despite crashing out at a damp Monaco two weeks earlier.

Schumacher qualified third and had a poor start, before eventually recovering to win the race by 45 seconds ahead of Jean Alesi.

On the Autosport Podcast, journalist Kevin Turner said: “I think there were two periods in F1 history where the gap between first and second is its biggest.

“One is Schumacher between Senna’s death and [Mika] Hakkinen getting up and running ahead of everyone.

“And the other one is Stirling Moss after [Juan Manuel] Fangio retires before his own crash. I think there are two where they’re so far ahead, they can win Grand Prix in significantly inferior machinery.”

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His colleague Damien Smith replied: “Schumacher’s basically given up a third world championship on the track by moving to Ferrari in 1996, as far as I’m concerned.”

Turner continued: “I think one of the Williams engineers at the time said, looking at the car on track, that they hadn’t suddenly found a magic wet setup. That car looked horrible.

“And he just did things with it that no one else can do. And that’s a rival saying that, isn’t it?

“I mean, he did make a bad start. I mean, he went from third to sixth again, the first lap, actually, I think he was further back.”

Smith concluded: “He often did make bad starts. He had a reputation for not being very good at starts.”

READ MORE: Red Bull driver Max Verstappen’s life outside F1 from net worth to girlfriend

How Max Verstappen has conquered Michael Schumacher’s bad starts issue

Schumacher was a notoriously aggressive driver, and occasionally took things too far in the pursuit of success.

Both Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve can attest to that after their championship battles with Schumacher.

However, he didn’t always have the cleanest getaways, although Ferrari and Benetton’s dominance meant that wasn’t typically an issue.

Verstappen, on the other hand, has developed the opposite reputation to Schumacher as being ruthless going into the opening corner of any race.

The Dutchman’s move on Oscar Piastri at Imola stands out from last season, while Lando Norris got caught out by Verstappen on multiple occasions when he first started earning pole positions.

Even at the most recent Qatar Grand Prix, when Norris had the title in his hands, he was powerless to stop Verstappen overtaking him into turn one.