EXCLUSIVE: How legendary golfer Nick Faldo played a ‘hilarious’ part in Michael Schumacher’s F1 test debut

Sir Nick Faldo spent the 1980s and 1990s tearing up the fairways and greens of golf courses all over the world, but he also had an unlikely role in F1 history – sharing the Silverstone circuit with Michael Schumacher at the very start of the German’s career in the top echelon. Ahead of this year’s Belgian Grand Prix, the event in which Schumacher made his full F1 debut for Jordan, the six-time major champion remembers that special day with F1.com…

It was last year that Faldo and Schumacher’s names were mentioned together in the press, thanks to the charismatic Eddie Jordan – founder and owner of the eponymous F1 team – telling listeners of his Formula For Success podcast an unusual story.

Faldo’s part in Schumacher’s F1 debut

Suddenly missing half of his 1991 line-up when Bertrand Gachot went to prison for an altercation with a taxi driver in London, Jordan had to act quickly to find a replacement and opted for Mercedes-backed youngster Schumacher, who had been racing for the brand’s World Sportscar operation.

With the Belgian Grand Prix looming, Jordan was keen to squeeze in a test to give Schumacher some valuable F1 experience but, according to the Irishman, the Silverstone track chosen had already been booked on the only day both the driver and team were available.

Schumacher arrived on the F1 scene in 1991 when Jordan needed a new driver

The party supposedly responsible? Golfing icon and car enthusiast Faldo, along with his Porsche 959.

But what does the former world number one remember of that day?

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While his version of events differs slightly, the fact remains that Faldo shared the track day with a Jordan F1 car and, unbeknownst to him, a future legend of the sport was at the wheel of it.

“I think Eddie added a little bit of poetic licence,” chuckled Faldo, when asked about Jordan’s recollection, before explaining how the day at Silverstone unfolded from his perspective.

“I’m very good friends with John Fitzpatrick, who was a Porsche Cup winner, had his own team, drove 962s and that sort of thing… I had a 959, so Fitzy calls me and says, ‘Here, I’ve got a deal for you’, because he was clerk of the course at Silverstone.

Schumacher had caught Jordan’s eye with his performances in junior single-seaters and sportscars

“He said, ‘Jordan are practising, they’ve rented the track, just them on the track. If you come down, very simply when they’re on the track, you’re off, because they come in and out, so you can sneak out and have a couple of laps’.

“I drove down and we went to the workshop first, to see Eddie, with the [F1] car sitting there and everything. We didn’t know what was going on [with their test].

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“But I went out on the track, Fitzy drove me for a couple of laps, which was great. I did exactly as they said, ‘Off you go’. I’d do probably half a dozen laps, they’d give me a wave, I’d come in and woosh, off would go this Jordan, clipping it around.

“Then they’d [Jordan] come in again, I’d get a nod, and I did this backwards and forwards a good six or eight times in the day. How cool is that?”

Jordan gives Faldo his own F1 test

Faldo’s experience would get even cooler when Jordan pulled him to one side and offered up the opportunity of a lifetime – the chance to drive the 191 F1 car he had watched storming around the track.

Faldo got a feel for the car Schumacher would make his F1 debut in at Spa-Francorchamps

It was one Faldo and his 1.91-metre frame initially had reservations about.

“At the end of the day, Eddie says to me, ‘Do you want to have a go?’,” Faldo continues. “I said, ‘Oh no, I’m all right’. You know what Eddie’s like, he said, ‘When the f**k do you think you’ll get in an F1 car?’. I said, ‘Oh, all right’.

“They put me in it and I had to take my shoes off, I’d got no seatbelt… What scared me was they jammed the steering wheel in and it’s on my knees. I wish they’d told me, ‘Just hit that button to pull it off’, but I was in.

“As you know, it was the start of the paddle [shift] era, so you lift up the clutch and it goes off at 4,000 revs – it’s off. Then I had three laps, which were hilarious!”

Faldo could hardly contain himself as he continued to recall his whirlwind run around the British Grand Prix venue.

10 Moments of Schumacher Brilliance - Belgium 1991

“I tootled out, did a lap like, ‘What the heck is this?’, then came to the straight, and I’ll never forget thinking, ‘Okay, I’ll give it a squeeze’,” Faldo laughs once more. “I’m only in third [gear], so I give it a squeeze, and the only way I can describe it is it goes off like a catapult!

“It wasn’t accelerating like it’s a car, it just went boing, and it was gone. That’s the scary bit, the instant pick up – it’s ridiculous. It’s probably even more frightening now.

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“Anyway, it’s very bumpy, and if you hold the steering wheel light, you let it ride the bumps, and if you hold it tight, because you’re scared… the thing is like wiggling.

“I literally held my breath, gave it a squeeze. You suddenly go 120 mph or something, but it was more the wobble that scared me.

“Then I breathed out into my visor and completely fogged it up. Like an idiot, I put my thumb under the visor, pulled it out an inch, and of course the air comes in all over me! I kept going and was getting a little bit better.

Schumacher qualified a fine seventh on debut, only for his clutch to fail during the first lap of the race

“You went down the main straight, did the big right, came down the hill and there was the little left, right… I was getting quite good in the Porsche standing on the brakes, turning as hard as I could, getting a bit of tyre squeal and powering it.

“I thought I’d try the same [in the F1 car], so I came over this hill, stood on the brakes and it literally went zoom. I was 50 yards short of the corner and the thing’s nearly stopped – the brakes, everything, it was scary.

“I came in and Fitzy said my eyeballs were distorted…”

Faldo’s story steps up a gear

After removing himself from the car and taking a breather, Faldo began to realise what had just happened.

A pro golfer turned F1 test driver on home soil at the iconic Silverstone circuit. Surely it couldn’t get any better?

Well, fast forward a few decades and the story would take another wild turn.

Until recently, Faldo was unaware that Schumacher had tested alongside him at Silverstone

Settling in to watch the Schumacher documentary, which was released in 2021, Faldo noticed something strange when Jordan popped up and offered a few words about his newest prospect.

“It was a great day,” Faldo reflects further. “Then, of course, I’m watching the Schumacher documentary and Eddie’s talking, ‘We’ve got this young lad, put him in the car, gave him a test run’, and I went, ‘Hang on a minute!’

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“Honestly, we didn’t know. I suddenly go, ‘I don’t believe it, the young kid who was being tested was bloomin’ Schumacher’. We didn’t see him. He was in and out, [so] I didn’t even see him for the day. He came in, put his helmet on, did a session, then disappeared.

“It made the whole story even better to think, ‘Wow, I was right at the start of Michael Schumacher’s career in F1’. That is very, very cool for me.”

Strangely, though, it was not the first time that Faldo had mixed with an F1 star of the future.

Schumacher went on to achieve 68 pole positions, 91 race wins, 155 podiums and seven world titles in F1

“The other funny one was at the Festival of Speed at Goodwood,” he says. “My boy Matthew and I, we had lunch with a young lad called Lewis Hamilton! He was unknown, had just got a chance to start his career, hadn’t even done a race, I don’t think, and we had lunch with him.

“And another one… I did [BBC TV quiz show] A Question of Sport a million years ago and the young guy who hadn’t driven yet was Nigel Mansell. I said, ‘What do you do?’, and he was doing touring cars and had got an F1 drive – so I was with all of these guys right at the beginning!”

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A fan of motorsport in general, Faldo also has some hair-raising stories of passenger rides alongside his friend and former World Rally Champion Ari Vatanen – including one time “my stomach hit the roof” on the gravel of Bagshot’s army assault course.

A “huge fan” of F1 to this day

But it’s the F1 tale that he “dines on” as he travels the world with golf, letting everyone know about the day he drove on the same tarmac as Schumacher and then had a run in his car.

When he’s not playing or talking about golf, Faldo keeps a close eye on the F1 world

And while his golf commentary schedule keeps him busy, Faldo and his family – based in North America – still find time to watch the current crop of F1 racers battling it out.

“We’re in Montana, so we get up at whatever, five in the morning, to watch the race,” he explains.

“I [see] Eddie every now and then, and I think that’s how it all started [with this story coming out]. We bumped into each other and were telling the story, then Eddie’s on his podcast and what have you.

“I haven’t been to a race for ages because it never fitted with my TV schedule in America. I probably will go to one in the future, probably in the Middle East. I did a Monaco Grand Prix moons ago as a guest of BMW, so that was quite fun, and I think I did the very first Austin race.

“But we love F1. We’re huge fans; we’ve always been huge fans. It’s one of the few sports that I watch from start to finish!”