Norbert Haug opened up about the decay of Formula1 in Germany

• Michael won seven drivers’ world championships between 1994 and 2016.
• Mercedes Silver Arrows won eight consecutive constructors’ championships.
• German Grand Prix will not be held in 2019.

Former Mercedes-Benz motorsport vice president Norbert Haug has spoken candidly about the steady demise of the Formula 1 hegemony Michael Schumacher established in Germany.

Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher still hold the joint record for the most Formula One championships, seven.

“In Germany, Formula 1 has regressed into a tragedy for which every motorsport enthusiast can only be ashamed of himself,” Haug said

“Between 1994 and 2016 there were German world champions like on an assembly line, seven titles by Michael Schumacher, four in a row by Sebastian Vettel and finally the last one by Nico Rosberg in 2016 in the Silver Arrow.

Mercedes won four drivers’ world championships with its partner teams McLaren and Brawn GP between 1998 and 2009 with Mika Häkkinen, Lewis Hamilton, and Jenson Button. From 2014 to 2021, the Mercedes Silver Arrows works team won eight consecutive constructors’ championships, winning six of them with Hamilton and one with Rosberg.

Haug also emphasised the sharp decline in viewers and the German Grand Prix’s absence since 2019.

“For a dozen years at the end of the 90s and in the 2000s, there were two Formula 1 races in Germany per year, in front of packed stands and over 100,000 spectators each, and on [German TV] RTL watched by 12 million people instead of three million today.

“In 2010 there were seven German Formula 1 drivers in one season, today there is only Nico Hulkenberg in a second-class team and Mick Schumacher a hopeful reserve driver – but at least in the right team.

“There hasn’t been a German Grand Prix for a long time,” he concluded.

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