Schumacher was sublime over one lap. His first-ever qualifying session in at Spa was good enough for seventh, four places ahead of Jordan team-mate Andrea de Cesaris. Monaco was another demonstration of his immense speed, but nothing compares to his return from a broken leg in Sepang in , where he trounced the rest of the field by a second. The best qualifier ever? Hamilton always seems to find what he needs during the final part of qualifying.
We think of Ayrton Senna's pole lap from Monaco as the barometer of great qualifying laps. I argue that Hamilton's effort at Singapore in eclipses that as a spectator. A car that was woefully slow all weekend compared to its rivals got thrashed around Marina Bay to a pole position by three-tenths.
Is that the greatest lap of all time? You don't get nicknamed the 'regenmeister' for nothing. Schumacher was often flawless when the heavens opened, with his first victory for Ferrari a masterclass.
The car in was a shambles but luckily, it had Schumacher to steer it around for the Spanish Grand Prix. Forty-five seconds was the eventual gap between him in first and Jean Alesi in second in abhorrent conditions. One of the all-time great drives. Much like Schumacher, one of the early signs of Hamilton's greatness was a wet-weather drive at Silverstone in when he lapped every driver up to third and beat second by over a minute in similarly torrential rain. Again in Turkey, on an ice rink of a track, Hamilton made a small error on the opening lap but after that was faultless and ended up winning by over 30 seconds on a set of intermediates that had worn their down to become slicks in many respects.
If you ask anyone of the 7. He could have easily stayed at Benetton in the midst of its heydey but instead chose to go and develop Ferrari into a powerhouse. The Schumacher name is synonymous with both the Scuderia and the sport and will always be regarded as one of, if not the greatest driver. Hamilton's legacy will stretch far more than just his racing exploits. His personal battle for diversity, not just in the sport but in society, in general, has earned him a place in Time magazine's most influential people.
This is even before his Hamilton Commission sets off on its work. For young racing drivers, they all want to be a Lewis Hamilton now. The floodgates had now opened and he won a second title with the team in Then he earned his fifth title, equaling Fangio's record, in at the French GP with six rounds left.
However, in a situation we might characterize as Schumi-esque, there was a hugely controversial moment. In Austria he was dominated by teammate Barrichello who looked set to take victory, but then moved over just before the line to give Schumi the win. A chorus of booing, followed by an embarrassing moment on the podium, meant that the team was under the spotlight. This led to the banning of team orders in F1. He struggled throughout with the Bridgestone tyres, but took his record-breaking sixth title at the final race at Suzuka, fighting off the challenge of young chargers Kimi Raikkonen who would later replace him at Ferrari and Juan Pablo Montoya.
In he was once again dominant, taking 13 wins and clinching the title with four races left, breaking the points record on the way. Despite having a fast car, Ferrari struggled with tyres in , and Schumi could do no better than third in the title race, taking his only win of the season at the six-car USGP fiasco.
Rumours of retirement began to surface, but Schumi went into the season full of optimism. He equaled Ayrton Senna's pole-position record at the opening race in Bahrain, and claimed the record outright three rounds later at the San Marino GP—the same race in which Senna met his death.
As the season went on he began a championship challenge, despite being 25 points behind reigning champion Fernando Alonso after the Canadian GP. After Alonso retired at Monza and Schumi took an emotional win, pulling himself level with the Spaniard, he announced that he was to retire from the sport at the end of the season. Russell Clark. Jack Massey. Paulo Vinagre. Neil Anderson. Alex Barnby.
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