- Schumacher has joined every living world champion to contribute his signature
- The F1 legend was helped by his wife Corinna to sign the helmet with his initials
- A auction will raise money for Jackie Stewart’s Race Against Dementia charity
Michael Schumacher has signed a crash helmet that is to be auctioned for charity – with the help of his wife.
Mail Sport can reveal that the Formula One legend, who has not been seen in public since he suffered serious brain damage in a skiing accident in December 2013, is among every living world champion to contribute his signature.
With the guiding hand of wife Corinna, who nurses Schumacher with a retinue of medical staff at their home on the shores of Lake Geneva, the German has appended his initials ‘MS’ on the item that will be sold to raise funds for Sir Jackie Stewart’s Race Against Dementia charity.
The white helmet with Royal Stewart Tartan – as worn by Stewart in a career in the Sixties and Seventies that yielded three world titles – will be revealed at Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix.
Stewart, 85, will also drive his 1973 championship-winning Tyrrell on an exhibition lap prior to the race.
Stewart told the Mail: ‘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.’
Michael Schumacher has signed a helmet with the help of his wife Corinna, left
He signed a white helmet with Royal Stewart Tartan, as worn by Jackie Stewart in his career
The helmet will be auctioned by Stewart’s Race Against Dementia charity, established by the Formula One legend after his wife Lady Helen started to suffer dementia
Race Against Dementia was set up by Stewart after his wife of 53 years, Lady Helen, started to suffer dementia.
He told the BBC heartbreakingly last week that were moments when she no longer recognised him. ‘Where’s Jackie?’ she asked him as she got up for dinner. ‘That was the first time it has happened. She is in a new world.’
As for Schumacher, he was placed in a medically induced coma after his accident in Meribel in the French Alps – a few months before Lady Stewart’s diagnosis.
Race Against Dementia is funding a blood test trial developed by Cambridge University. It is hoped it will detect signs of frontotemporal dementia decades before it develops.
