Jackie Stewart drives F1 car for last time wearing helmet signed by all living champions - including Michael Schumacher
13 April 2025, 16:27
Sir Jackie Stewart has driven an Formula One car for the final time aged 85, wearing a helmet signed by all living champions, including Michael Schumacher.
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The three-time world champion drove the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain in his 1973 championship-winning Tyrell, in honour of his charity Race Against Dementia.
The unique helmet will be used to raise money for the charity set up by Stewart in 2016, after his wife Helen began suffering from the disease.
Read more: Michael Schumacher 'can't communicate verbally' as F1 legend's condition 'worsens'
Seven-time world champion Schumacher signed his initials 'MS' on the helmet with the aid of his wife Corinna.
Stewart told reporters, including the PA news agency, that it was likely to be the final time he got behind the wheel of an F1 car.
"I would have thought that's it," he said. "It was one idea that came from my sons actually, not from me, because of Race Against Dementia.
"You don't forget where first gear, fifth gear is. The car felt wonderful. I mean, we didn't go fast, but the whole feeling of the car was great."
Schumacher had a skiing accident in the French Alps in December 2013 where he hit his head on a rock and suffered a near-fatal brain injury.
Schumacher, now 56, has been kept out of public view ever since, with only a handful of visitors allowed inside the family home near Lake Geneva in Switzerland where he is receiving round-the-clock medical care.
Stewart told MailOnline: "It is wonderful that Michael could sign the helmet in this worthy cause - a disease for which there is no cure.
"His wife helped him, and it completed the set of every single champion still with us."
The helmet will be revealed ahead of Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix.
While Schumacher lived to tell the tale after his accident, a German reporter has claimed the race car driver has lost the ability to do so.
Felix Gorner, who is understood to be close to the Schumacher family, said: "The situation is very sad.
"He needs constant care and is completely dependent on his caregivers. And he can no longer express himself verbally.
"Currently, there’s a maximum of 20 people who can approach Michael."
He added that the sporting great was being treated with "the right strategy because the family is acting in Michael’s best interests."
"They’ve always strictly protected his privacy, and that hasn’t changed," he said.
