Highlights

Schumacher, simply the most successful

(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-08 09:14

If Michael Schumacher announces on Sunday that he is retiring at the end of the season, he will do so as the most successful Formula One driver of all time.

That much is beyond debate. Whether Ferrari's seven-times world champion is also the greatest is another question altogether.

It is one that has dogged Schumacher ever since he overtook the late Juan Manuel Fangio's record of five championships in 2003 and one that will probably be argued forever.

There are those who will be praying that this weekend's Italian Grand Prix is not Schumacher's final European appearance, yearning to witness once more his skill in the rain at Spa or jubilation at winning in Germany.

He is one of the greats, a figure who transcends his sporting arena. A generation of fans has grown up watching Schumacher win.

There are plenty, however, who feel that the 37-year-old German's career has been too chequered for him to be due the worship accorded to Fangio, Jim Clark or Ayrton Senna -- even if the latter was no angel himself.

This year's Monaco Grand Prix, when Schumacher was punished for deliberately impeding rivals to ensure he took pole position, was the latest in a list of controversies to have enraged rivals over time.

"I think that the problem is you don't ever see his true personality," Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 champion and a sworn foe since that bitter title clash with the German, said scornfully last month.

"He's a racer -- but a pure racer, nothing but a racer, and because of that, I think that the day he hangs up his helmet people will just forget about him."

HERO STATUS

That is wishful thinking on the Canadian's part.

Schumacher is an intensely private character, shielding his family from the public gaze, but he will not just disappear once he stops racing.

At the same time, with everything he does on the track subjected to the most detailed scrutiny before a global audience of millions, the fame and hero worship make him uneasy.

"I don't want it, I have a problem with it, just as I do with the hysteria surrounding my person," Schumacher once said, professing little interest in records and Formula One history.

"Obviously I appreciate what people think of my achievements and how it lifts them, but I don't see myself as a hero.

"I am just like everyone else, I just happen to be able to drive fast."

The German, so often depicted in the media -- particularly in Britain -- as a cold and ruthless driver who would do almost anything to beat his rivals, has been a winner like no other.

The bare facts are incontestable: a record 89 victories, five successive titles for Ferrari and more points, pole positions and podiums than anyone else in history.

Renault's world champion Fernando Alonso is one who doubts that anyone will ever get close to beating Schumacher's number of victories.

"I think you need to be extremely lucky, with the right team always," he said. "When you are in the wrong car at the wrong moment, you can't do anything."

Schumacher has excelled at being in the right place at the right time, and almost always in the best car. He has also been the architect of his own success by building a strong team around him.

It is a measure of the loyalty that he generates that, days before Ferrari's announcement about their 2007 lineup and his future at Sunday's Italian Grand Prix, no leaks had emerged about his plans.

BRICKLAYER'S SON

The son of a bricklayer, who now owns a go-kart circuit in Kerpen near Cologne, Schumacher was born in Huerth-Hermuelheim on January 3, 1969.

The man who would go on to become Germany's first and so far only Formula One world champion started karting at the age of four in a machine built by father Rolf and powered by a lawnmower engine.

The former garage mechanic took his first win at Spa in 1992, followed by his first championship with Benetton in 1994 after Brazilian Senna was killed at Imola.

Senna's death robbed Formula One of an enthralling battle, the young pretender against the triple champion. Only later, with the emergence of Alonso as Formula One's youngest champion in 2005 and Kimi Raikkonen winning with McLaren, did that generational showdown emerge.

Instead it was with Briton Damon Hill, stepping into the breach at Williams after Senna's death, and Mika Hakkinen that Schumacher fought the duels that lit up the championship in the mid-1990s.

A collision with Hill in the 1994 title-decider in Australia handed Schumacher his first title. In 1995, he clinched his second and left for Ferrari to seal his fame and establish a new era for the glamour team.

Hill won in 1996 and then came the debacle of 1997, when Schumacher tried to run Villeneuve off the road in the title decider.

"If there is anything in my career that I could undo, it would be that episode," he said later.

In 2000 he secured Ferrari's first driver's title in 21 years and the pressure came off with four more in a row. Whatever is announced on Sunday, few would rule out an eighth crown before he goes.