Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin says Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton were “very different” personalities to work with.

Yet he claimed the pair were quite similar in terms of their feats on track, their preparation and the feedback they provided to the team’s engineers.

Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton compared by senior Mercedes figure

Schumacher and Hamilton are the only two drivers in history to win seven World Championships apiece and their paths crossed on the grid while Hamilton was a McLaren driver, with Schumacher having come out of retirement for three seasons at Mercedes from 2010.

Shovlin has worked at the Brackley-based team through its different guises as BAR, Honda, Brawn GP and now Mercedes, working with several World Champions along the way.

Schumacher came out of retirement to drive for the team in 2010, with Hamilton making the move to Mercedes once Schumacher retired for the second and final time at the end of the 2012 season, going on to rack up six of his seven titles.

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Hamilton has since gone onto surpass many of Schumacher’s records within Formula 1, becoming the first driver to register 100 grand prix wins and pole positions in 2021.

Having worked up close with the two most decorated drivers in the sport’s history, Shovlin explained how Hamilton and Schumacher compared.

Appearing on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, he said: “Very different in terms of personality, different in how they work and engage with the team.

“But when you look at what they do behind the wheel, what they do in terms of preparation, what they’re giving in terms of feedback, quite similar.

“I think Michael was great in that he really raised the level of this team.

“And he’d come from Ferrari – they had been such a dominant force over the previous decade, and we had to work harder when we got him within our team.

“A lot of that continued with Lewis, but you had this driver where if you gave him the right information, if you put the car in the right place, he’d just stick it on pole for you.

“It was great that we could continue that method of working with engineers and drivers.”

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