Michael Schumacher got big break after F1 driver was jailed for using CS gas on taxi driver
dailystar.co.ukMichael Schumacher’s F1 debut, when he brilliantly put his Jordan seventh on the grid, only for the car’s clutch to fail on the opening lap and force him into retirement. READ MORE: Ten Formula 1 drivers you completely forgot about - and what they are up to now Given how the race played out, with the other Jordan driver, Andrea de Cesaris, chasing down winner Ayrton Senna in the closing stages before suffering an engine problem, it is not outlandish to suggest Schumacher could have been in the fight for victory.But it is circumstances which paved the way for Schumacher’s debut which were most extraordinary.Jordan, in their debut season in the sport, had run De Cesaris and Luxembourg-born Bertrand Gachot.
The latter had been particularly impressive, setting the fastest lap of the race at the previous Grand Prix in Hungary. Gachot was so confident going into Spa that he even bet his mechanics he would secure pole position, ahead of the likes of Senna, Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost.But Gachot would never race at Spa.
His world came tumbling down when he was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted of causing actual bodily harm to a taxi driver the previous December.
Gachot, in his girlfriend’s car, was driving himself to a meeting when he got into a dispute with the taxi driver. The cars touched bumpers in traffic, prompting the taxi driver to get out.“It was bumper to bumper, we were stopped in traffic,” Gachot told F1’s Beyond the Grid Podcast last year. “I gave him a nudge.
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