James Vowles on how Michael Schumacher was ‘completely different’ to public persona

James Vowles has detailed how Michael Schumacher was “completely different” off the track than he was on it during their time working together.

Schumacher returned to the sport in 2010 when he decided to move away from Ferrari and join the new Mercedes venture at Brackley.

The allure of fulfilling a life-long ambition of driving for Mercedes as well as a reunion with Ross Brawn, who was team principal at the time, was enough to coax Schumacher out of retirement to form an all-German line-up alongside Nico Rosberg.

Whilst there, Schumacher was introduced to a young strategist by the name of James Vowles who had stayed with the team through the takeover from Brawn GP to Mercedes.

Despite them being at different stages of their career, the two were just nine years apart in age and the seven-time World Champion left an impression on the now Williams team boss.

“I’ve worked with Michael and Michael was this incredible individual,” Vowles told the Sky Sports F1 podcast. “He had an aura and a presence with him as well, completely different to what you see externally.

“What he is within a team is this person that is here to help us help the team move forward and brought the team really very close together. He knew everyone’s birthdays, he sent flowers to prospective partners as required and really looked after individuals in a great way.

“But what it meant is the team were really pushing for him to be successful and that wasn’t through any other mechanism, just being himself.

“What he was also good at is he knew that his performance perhaps was not quite at the same level but he made up for it in terms of the amount of work and dedication he put in and from that, Nico learned a lot.”

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Vowles has worked with a number of World Champions throughout his career but singled out the one aspect of their personality that they all share.

“It’s not so much one preference or otherwise,” Vowles responded when asked which one he had learnt the most from. “They all bring something different to the table but are successful as a result of it.

“It’s more learning from each of them as individuals as to what makes them tick, what makes them grow.

“What I can tell you is what they all have in common [whether they are] World Champions or future World Champions and it’s the same dedication for going after every millisecond. That competitive nature is inherent in all of them.”