French police have said Michael Schumacher was not skiing recklessly when he crashed and hit his head on a rock.
The German was “applying the rules” when skiing off-piste and investigators are not concerned with the speed of which he was travelling at the time of the accident.
French state prosecutor Patrick Quincy informed a press conference that investigators had been to the scene of the accident and have spoken to witnesses and medical staff, and have analysed video footage from Schumacher’s helmet.
[WITNESS ‘FILMED ACCIDENT’ ON PHONE]
Describing the footage reviewed, Quincy said: “”There are some French rules and as far as we can see from the initial investigations it doesn’t look as though as he has broken these.
“He followed the red piste and went off piste. He is evidently an extremely good skier, but one of his skis hit a rock that was sticking out of the piste, causing him to fall and hit his head on a rock.
“It is perfectly clear and gave us a lot of information, confirming all of the information we already had. We use this film to create a reconstruction.”
Quincy also stated that, after analysing the video footage, it was difficult to determine how fast the seven-time Formula 1 world champion was going at the time of the accident, but insisted that his skis were “not the cause of the accident”.
“Schumacher was a very good skier and he did go off piste,” he added. “When he went off piste he did not look at reducing his speed.
“There is confusion among terms used by medics which talk about the impact to his head. So we cannot really say what speed he was going based on the injuries he received to his head.
“We will have to speak to experts about this. But to be honest, how fast he was going is not really important to our investigations at the moment.”
