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Formula One's Michael Schumacher takes wheel of slow cab to airport

BERLIN: Cab drivers are best known for giving hair-raising rides, not being taken on them.

But one cabbie in southern Germany apparently wasn't driving fast enough. His customer, former Formula One racing champ Michael Schumacher, had him shove over so he could take wheel himself.

"It was sheer lunacy," cabbie Tuncer Yilmaz told the Muenchener Abendzeitung newspaper. "He took the curves with full speed, but you couldn't even notice it. He just knows how to do it."

Schumacher's spokeswoman Sabine Kehm confirmed the story Wednesday. She said Schumacher had flown in from Switzerland Saturday on his private jet to buy a puppy from a breeder in the town of Gesuelz.

When Yilmaz picked up the seven-time Formula One champion and his family at the Coburg airport, he was star-struck.

"I was so nervous," Yilmaz said. "I was so confused that I almost forgot all traffic rules."

So on the way back to the airport Schumacher, the most successful driver in Formula One history, asked Yilmaz to slide over so he could drive.

Yilmaz said he would never forget the ride.

Nor the tip. On top of the €60 ($88.03) fare, Schumacher gave him €100 ($146.72).

Yilmaz' only regret is that German photo radar didn't catch Schumacher speeding, which would have produced a ticket with a photo that would have been sent to Yilmaz, as the car's owner.

"I so much would have loved to get a speeding photo of this ride," Yilmaz told the Abendzeitung. "I would have gladly paid a ticket for that."