2003

The only slight discrepancy is that Michael hasn’t actually won the race. On this Sunday in Suzuka, he has secured a ’mere’ eighth position. However, in one of the most dramatic title battles of his career, this eighth place gives him precisely the right number of points to secure the championship. He can now claim the record for number of world championship titles.

Taking a bath in Champagne

At this moment, however, statistics are of little interest to either Michael or his ecstatic mechanics. They carry him shoulder-high through the crowd, bounce him up in the air and spray him mercilessly with more and more champagne. Almost three hours after the race has finished, Michael joins his mechanics and engineers in leaping over the pit wall, taking the home straight by storm and celebrating their triumph in front of a grandstand still packed with spectators.

A triumph they have had to work hard for during the 2003 season. The dominance of the previous two years has waned. New regulations and a new points system have been introduced to make the championship more open and keep the excitement going longer. And in any case, Michael’s campaign hardly gets off to the best of starts. Fourth in Australia, sixth in Malaysia and a flyer in the chaotically wet conditions of Sao Paulo. This is the first time since Hockenheim 2001 that Michael fails to finish a race. His main rivals are Kimi Räikkönen and BMW-Williams driver Juan Pablo Montoya, both of whom are using Michelin tyres, a factor that will play a decisive role in the way the season pans out.

‘Red Shark’ displaces ‘Red Goddess’

In Imola, the ’Red Goddess’ (the immensely successful F2002 model) makes her F1 curtain call and Michael duly records his first win of the season, a triumph that is somewhat overshadowed by the death of his mother Elisabeth. Two weeks later comes the debut of the new F2003-GA, named after the late Gianni Agnelli; however, it’s not long before the ventilation ’gills’ lead to it being nicknamed the ’Red Shark’. On his first outing in the new Ferrari, Michael takes top podium spot and repeats this triumph in the Austrian GP, where even flames shooting from the vehicle during his pit stop cannot prevent his victory march.

After coming third in Monaco, Michael is four points behind Räikkönen. Following his next victory in Canada, there is a setback at the Nürburgring. A duel with Montoya leaves Michael stuck in the gravel bed. The marshals push him back onto the track, but the best he can now muster is fifth place; even so, the points are to come in handy later on when the title race begins to narrow. P3 in France and P4 in England contribute a few more points to his tally, though the German result is less useful: a damaged tyre means the best he can manage is seventh.

Then comes the low point of the season: in Budapest, Michael is lapped by Fernando Alonso who wins his first GP race to release a wave of F1 euphoria in his Spanish homeland, just as Michael had once done in Germany. Michael manages some damage limitation with eighth position, which leaves him one point ahead of Montoya and two ahead of Räikkönen.