It was set to be his final race for Ferrari, and his final race in Formula 1 – and yet a win for the German, if Fernando Alonso failed to score, would have given him a record-expanding eighth title. There was a lot going on for Michael Schumacher when he turned up to the 2006 Brazilian Grand Prix. The final fling for Ferrari – Brazilian Grand Prix 2006 “The car ran superbly,” said fourth-placed Brundle after the race, before adding regretfully, “but I was a lap or two too late going back onto slicks… I was in two minds and it cost me the race.” 6. Why I picked it: Schumacher was an operator, pure and simple, and his decision-making in Spa that day was a perfect example of what separates the great from the very good in Formula 1. It was a decision that was two laps shrewder than the leading Williams runners, allowing Schumacher to take the lead from Nigel Mansell on lap 34 and check out for his maiden win, the first for a German in F1 since 1975. Rather than wasting energy ruing the error, Schumacher clocked the blistering on Brundle’s rear tyres after falling in behind him and immediately came into the pits for fresh slicks. Running in third place at the 1992 Belgian Grand Prix – just his 18th start in Formula 1 – Schumacher slewed off the track at Stavelot on lap 29 of 44, allowing his Benetton team mate Martin Brundle past into third place. Michael Schumacher’s first victory in F1 was, uncharacteristically, borne from a mistake. Why I picked it: Fittingly, there were echoes of Senna’s body-breaking drive to victory at Brazil in 1991 in the sheer bloody-mindedness of Schumacher’s display in Spain that day. Schumacher wound up finishing the race a creditable 24 seconds down on Hill, the Englishman busy at the head of the field recording the first victory for Williams since the death of Ayrton Senna. Left to tour around the Circuit de Catalunya in fifth gear only, Schumacher used all of the knowledge that he’d built up saving fuel in sportscars to coast the car round, the Ford engine bogging down horribly in the slow corners, while Schumacher was forced to feather the throttle down the long Barcelona straight to keep the needle out of the red. Having beaten Damon Hill to pole by a comfortable 0.651s, Schumacher appeared to be cruising to win number five of the year in the race when his gearbox threw in the towel. But as it happened, the exertions it took for him to finish second in Barcelona were arguably more impressive than those six other victories. Had it not been for the Spanish Grand Prix, Michael Schumacher would have won the first seven races of the troubled 1994 season. Runner-up in a fixed gear Benetton – Spanish Grand Prix 1994 “If we touched a little, it was just because there was nowhere else for the wheels to go.” 8. “His move was completely correct,” he graciously conceded after the race. Why I picked it: We all know that Schumacher’s on-track moves were sometimes boundary-distorting – but even Alesi couldn’t begrudge him this beauty. “I had to decide to stay in second place or to push to win,” said Schumacher after the race, “and my fans pushed me to try and win the race.” The pair’s cars enjoyed the sweetest of embraces before Schumacher pushed on into the lead, going on to claim his 17th career victory and edge closer to his second straight title. But with two laps to go, the fast-approaching Schumacher unleashed a lunge around the outside of the Frenchman through the mud-strewn chicane that was so millimetrically perfect in its execution that only a handful of drivers in F1 history could have hoped to have pulled it off. In the Grand Prix’s closing stages, Ferrari’s Jean Alesi – despite running on a set of knackered out Goodyears – appeared to be en route for his second career win. Conditions at the 1995 European Grand Prix – held that year at the Nurburgring – were pretty grotty, with so much rain having fallen that the usually pristine grass looked more like a chewed up rugby pitch than racetrack greenery.
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