James Vowels, the chief strategist of the Mercedes F1 team and Ron Meadows the sporting director of the race each share how heartbroken they were when Michael Schumacher ended his tenure with the team without a Grand Prix win. Schumacher who raced with the Mercedes outfit for a three year spell between 2010 and 2012, secured one podium with the team though he ultimately failed to add to his tally of 91 Grand Prix wins. The two team members, who have been with the team since it's BAR days have shared their disappointment with the final outcome. "I was heartbroken, truly heartbroken for him," Vowels said on the Beyond the Grid podcast. "This is a guy that we all wanted – around this table and within the factory – for him to win a race, because he deserved it frankly, and he put so much effort into the team and so much of his life into the team that it was payback for him and that was his opportunity through the year. "And I was heartbroken with the fact that that one race was where he dropped back. I felt for him – I still feel now – he didn’t get all the results that he deserved give the amount he was putting in the team." His collegue Meadows agrees also stating that a large part of the German outfit's success in the years that followed were down to the seven-time world champion. "Given how he helped us improve, I think certainly my biggest regret was not seeing Michael win a race for us, because he was a different level of driver we’d ever worked with at that point," Meadows added. "I really believe, we all wanted him to win. It didn’t happen. A couple of years later we couldn’t stop winning and he deserves some of that because the reason we’re winning today, a lot was down to him because he made us better." Vowels also went on to describe how Schumacher was a force to be reckoned with, though his age was starting to show. "The thing that wasn’t perhaps picked up from before is one of the things that made him incredibly strong is actually something we’ve picked up on now, but he knew where he was weak and he accepted where he was weak and tried to improve on that all the time," Vowels said. "He had shortcomings in terms of how he was able to drive the car relative to Nico, but he was very conscious and aware of that and doing what he could to remedy those areas. But the areas which, in truth, part of it was age, where he wouldn’t be helped to find anything on it, were there. I think he also knew that was his time. "I just wish he won his race because one more year, that would have been a fantastic year for him.”
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