12/04/2019
NEWS STORY
Michael Schumacher's former manager, Willi Weber, has criticised Bernie Ecclestone for "stupid" comments he made about the seven-time world champion.
In an interview with Germany's Sport Bild, ahead of the sport's 1,000th event, Ecclestone had made a number of controversial comments about Schumacher, claiming that "his problem was that he had no limits".
Though he didn't identify any specific incidents, it is thought that, among others, Ecclestone was referring to Schumacher's clash with Jacques Villeneuve at Jerez in 1997, when he said: "The scandals brought a lot of publicity, but not the right kind. It was good for F1, but not so good for him. That’s what I meant by him not knowing the limits."
"As a racing driver, you have to go to and sometimes beyond the limit," said Weber. "Nobody knew this better than Michael."
"Bernie knows it too," he added.
"The fact is that Villeneuve actually invited him to drive into him," he said of the Jerez clash. "I told Michael 'if you do it, do it right, just as Prost and Senna did a dozen times', but he did it half-heartedly, because as a German he knew it was s***.
"Michael put F1 in a place it had never been before and may never be in again," said Weber. "Yet now he (Ecclestone) talks like that about Schumi who cannot speak for himself."
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