A small nice thing in these trying times

July 14, 2024 6:05 PM

As far as we are aware, Ralf Schumacher is now the winningest gay driver in the history of Formula 1.

Several years after his by-all-accounts difficult divorce from Cora-Caroline Brinkmann, retired racing driver Ralf Schumacher came out on Instagram with a post of himself and his partner Etienne enjoying a sunrise that (apparently) translates to:

"The most beautiful thing in life is when you have the right partner by your side with whom you can share everything"

And subsequently indicated that they'd been together for two years.

posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace (9 comments total)

Nothing to this except for the instagram post. I just thought that the news brought a smile to my face and that eh maybe we could use a smile here or there in these rotten times.

I do wonder whether private conversations in the past are associated with Vettel and Hamilton particularly being such firm allies (at least relative to F1 in general).

Anyway, godspeed, gentlemen.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:23 PM on July 14 [1 favorite]

Oh my - that's fabulous!

I am not into Formula 1 at all but I know some folks who are, and I'm very happy they'll get to see Ralf and Etienne happy together.

Thanks so much for sharing this, GCU Sweet and Full of Grace!
posted by kristi at 6:34 PM on July 14

F1 is very much a boys club (not only the gender and sexuality of the vast majority of the drivers and crew but also see the fines Yuki Tsunoda just picked up for using ableist language he learned from his English speaking teammates) but even just a few short years ago it was much, much worse. Grid girls were banned in 2018 and fans and drivers both reacted extremely negatively to the change. Hamilton and Vettel, two drivers mentioned above for being allies in 2024, were outspoken in the disappointed to removing the grid girls. The culture was gross.

It awesome Ralf feels comfortable in coming out now, but it's very easy to understand why he has stayed in the closet until now.
posted by thecjm at 6:38 PM on July 14 [1 favorite]

Great picture - definitely brought a smile to my face too! I'm really glad he feels comfortable to come out now.
posted by eternalhedgehog at 7:04 PM on July 14

I would much rather we continue to have this type of story as our plot twist for the day.
posted by hoyland at 7:30 PM on July 14 [1 favorite]

Well, you can head on over to my Emma-Jane Wilson post. While it's not a dramatic in terms of a coming out story, the piece includes mention of her wife and family.
posted by sardonyx at 7:39 PM on July 14

It's a lovely instagram post, but the context is so ineffably sad. And it's far from being the exception. By way of contrast, there are no openly gay or bisexual men in the entire professional cycling circuit, despite there being multiple openly gay professional female cyclists.
posted by tim_in_oz at 9:13 PM on July 14 [2 favorites]

This is great! Excellent post, thank you - probably wouldn't have seen it otherwise. While it's being reported widely in newspapers and such, none of the F1 media I follow have anything on it, which is pretty fucking disappointing.
posted by Dysk at 12:20 AM on July 15

Too fast, too fabulous
posted by chavenet at 1:42 AM on July 15