David Schumacher suffers fracture in Hockenheim DTM crash

Schumacher was one of several drivers to crash out on a frantic lap after the safety car restart on Saturday, prompting race control to immediately red-flag the session.

With the cars bunched up in two-by-two formation as per the restart procedure, Schumacher and Thomas Preining were battling for seventh when they made contact into Turn 8, smashing the barriers at high-speed on the outside of the left-hander.

The Winward Mercedes driver was subsequently taken to a hospital in Ludwigshafen, some 30km north of the circuit, where initial checks revealed he had suffered a scraped knee and bruising to his lumbar spine.

Now, the 20-year-old’s father and ex-Formula 1 driver Ralf Schumacher has revealed that he has sustained a fracture to his lumbar vertebra and is required to wear a corset for the time being.

However, David Schumacher won’t require an operation on his broken spine and is expected to make a complete recovery in a few weeks.

"When David came home, he was still complaining of back pain,” Ralf Schumacher told German news agency dpa.

“We then decided to go to a hospital in Salzburg to have an MRI done. It turned out that a lumbar vertebra was fractured.

“According to the doctors treating David, that means a break of around six weeks.”

David Schumacher, Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

David Schumacher ended up missing Sunday’s title decider due to the damage sustained to his Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the crash, bringing a premature end to his first season in the DTM.

The ex-Formula 3 racer scored a best result of 11th during the year, achieved at Spa, and qualified inside the top 10 twice in a field comprising nearly 30 cars.

The crash between Schumacher and Preining also created a chain reaction under braking for Turn 8, leading to Ricardo Feller tagging the back of Dennis Olsen’s Porsche.

Olsen subsequently went spinning into the wall on the other side of the track, with the engine thrown out from his Porsche in impact catching fire and striking the Ferrari of Nick Cassidy.

Porsche duo Preining and Olsen were subsequently declared unfit to race by the doctors, while Cassidy also ended up missing Sunday’s final race due to crash damage.