Michael Schumacher has signed Jackie Stewart’s crash helmet with the help of his wife Corinna Schumacher, as the F1 legend’s helmet prepares to be auctioned for charity.
Corinna, who has nursed her husband since he suffered serious brain damage from a skiing accident in 2013, helped the seven-time world champion sign the helmet with his initials ‘MS’.
Stewart will reveal the helmet at Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix and has collected all 20 of the living champions' signatures, with Schumacher’s initials below the right side of the visor.
The helmet will be sold to raise funds for Stewart’s Race Against Dementia charity, with the foundation set up by the three-time world champion after his wife Helen started to suffer with dementia at the age of 53.
Schumacher completes Stewart’s champion helmet
“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,” Stewart said to the Daily Mail.
The white helmet with a tartan design was worn by Stewart during his racing career, during which he won the F1 drivers’ title in 1969, 1971 and 1973, and the champion will also drive his 1973 championship-winning Tyrrell on an exhibition lap prior to Sunday’s race in Bahrain.
Stewart recently opened up about his wife Helen’s condition to the BBC last week, where he revealed that the progression of the disease had got to the point where his wife no longer recognised him.
The 85-year-old also revealed that Race Against Dementia is funding a blood test trial developed by Cambridge University, where they hope it will detect signs of frontotemporal dementia 10 to 20 years before it develops.
The study is one of a number that are being developed in the UK at present, with the University of Oxford also developing dementia blood tests.
F1 helmets don't get much more special than this ❤️