Ferrari (1996–2006)
In 1996, Schumacher joined Ferrari, a team that had last won the Drivers' Championship in 1979 and the Constructors' Championship in 1983, for a salary of $60 million over two years. He left Benetton a year before his contract with them expired; he later cited the team's damaging actions in 1994 as his reason for opting out of his deal. In 1997, Schumacher lured Benetton employees Rory Byrne (designer) and Ross Brawn (technical director) to Ferrari. Ferrari had previously come close to the championship in 1982 and 1990. The team had suffered a disastrous downturn in the early 1990s, partially as its famous V12 engine was no longer competitive against the smaller, lighter, and more fuel-efficient V10s of its competitors. Various drivers, notably Prost, had given the vehicles disparaging labels, such as "truck", "pig", and "accident waiting to happen". Furthermore, the poor performance of the Ferrari pit crews was considered a running joke.
At the end of 1995, although Ferrari had improved into a solid competitor, it was still considered inferior to front-running teams like Benetton and Williams. Schumacher declared the Ferrari F310 good enough to win a championship, although afterwards his teammate Eddie Irvine labelled the F310 "an awful car", a "piece of junk", and "almost undriveable", while designer John Barnard admitted that the car "wasn't very good". Irvine also later commented: "The '96 [Ferrari] car was a disaster and was nearly undriveable. Only someone of Michael Schumacher's ability—and maybe Senna—could have driven it." During winter testing, Schumacher first drove a Ferrari, their 1995 Ferrari 412 T2, and was two seconds faster than former regulars Alesi and Gerhard Berger had been. Alesi and Berger were allowed to drive Schumacher's Benetton B195 with which he won the World Championship in 1995, and they could not believe how Schumacher had won with it, calling it "the ugly duckling" for being so terrible to drive and being prone to crashes.
In 1996, Schumacher finished third in the Drivers' Championship and helped Ferrari to second place in the Constructors' Championship ahead of his old team Benetton. During the season, the car had reliability problems; Schumacher did not finish in 7 of the 16 races. At the French Grand Prix, Schumacher took pole position but suffered engine failure on the formation lap. He won three races, more than the team's total tally for the period from 1991 to 1995, despite a poor chassis. He took his first win for Ferrari at the Spanish Grand Prix, where he lapped the entire field up to third place in the wet. After a bad start, which saw him dropping from third to sixth place, before taking the lead on lap 19, he consistently lapped five seconds faster than the rest of the field in the difficult conditions. At the Belgian Grand Prix, he used well-timed pit stops to fend off Williams' Jacques Villeneuve. He also won in front of the tifosi (Ferrari fans) at the Italian Grand Prix.
Schumacher and Villeneuve competed for the title in 1997, despite never sharing a podium and almost never battling directly on the track, in what has been described as the sport's most dramatic and controversial season finale. Villeneuve, driving the superior Williams FW19, led the championship in the early part of the season. Schumacher's first win of the season came at the wet Monaco Grand Prix, in which he took a six-second lead after one lap. By mid-season, despite possibly driving not even the second-fastest car on the grid, Schumacher had taken the championship lead, winning five races, and entered the season's finale (the European Grand Prix at the Jerez Circuit) with a one-point advantage. In qualifying, Schumacher set the same fastest lap as Villeneuve and Frentzen. He started in second position as Villeneuve set his fastest lap first but was able to jump him at the start.
In the middle stages of the race, Schumacher's Ferrari developed a coolant leak and loss of performance indicating he might not finish the race. As Villeneuve approached to pass his rival on lap 48, Schumacher turned in to the corner earlier than expected, hit the side of Villeneuve's Williams car and slid off the track into the gravel trap, retiring from the race. Villeneuve went on and scored four points to take the championship. Despite public outcry, the race stewards did not initially award any penalty, as they had deemed it a racing incident; two weeks after the race, in an unprecedented move, Schumacher was disqualified from the entire 1997 Drivers' Championship after an FIA disciplinary hearing found that his "manoeuvre was an instinctive reaction and although deliberate not made with malice or premeditation, it was a serious error." Initially feeling wronged, Schumacher accepted the decision and admitted having made a mistake, upon seeing the footage when he got out of the car and adrenaline had worn off. His actions were widely condemned in British, German, and Italian newspapers. Another view is that Villeneuve went into the corner too fast; without Schumacher turning into him, he would have overshot the turn and ended up in the gravel. In later years, Villeneuve himself admitted that he "would never have made that corner without [Schumacher's] push", and Schumacher stated in 2009 that if he could have his career over again, he would "do some things differently", citing Jerez 1997 as something that he would have changed in his career.
In 1998, Finnish driver Mika Häkkinen became Schumacher's main title rival. Driving the superior McLaren MP4/13, Häkkinen won the first two races of the season, gaining a 16-point advantage over Schumacher, who then won the Argentine Grand Prix. With the Ferrari improving significantly in the second half of the season, Schumacher took six victories and had five other podium finishes. One of his victories was at the Hungarian Grand Prix, a track where overtaking is difficult and that favoured McLaren; Schumacher drove 19 consecutive qualifying-like laps to make race engineer Ross Brawn's alternative three-stop strategy work and to go from third to first place. Brawn had told him: "Michael, you have 19 laps to pull out 25 seconds. We need 19 qualifying laps from you." Schumacher ultimately came nine seconds ahead of David Coulthard. Häkkinen, who started on pole, achieved only a point due to reliability issues. Ferrari took a 1–2 finish at the French Grand Prix, the first Ferrari 1–2 finish since 1990, and at the Italian Grand Prix, which tied Schumacher with Häkkinen for the lead of the Drivers' Championship with 80 points.
There were two controversies during the 1998 season. At the British Grand Prix, Schumacher was leading the race when he was handed a ten-second stop-go penalty just three laps from the finish, which was a result of overtaking the lapped car of Alexander Wurz during a safety car period. As regulations stated that a penalty must be served within three racing laps of its being handed out, Schumacher and Ferrari decided to serve the penalty on the last lap when he turned into the pit lane, crossed the start-finish line, and stopped in his pit box, thereby winning the Grand Prix (and rendering the race over) whilst simultaneously technically still serving the penalty. There was some doubt whether this counted as serving the penalty; because he had crossed the finish line when he came into the pit lane, the win was valid. The FIA rescinded the penalty due to taking 31 minutes to issue it, rather than within the 25 minutes limit, and rejected McLaren's protest. At the Belgian Grand Prix, Schumacher was leading the race by 40 seconds in heavy spray but collided with Coulthard's McLaren when the Scot, a lap down, slowed on the racing line in poor visibility to let Schumacher past. His Ferrari lost a wheel but could return to the pits, although he was forced to retire. Schumacher leaped out of his car and headed to McLaren's garage in an infuriated manner and accused Coulthard of "trying to kill" him. Coulthard admitted five years later that the accident had been his mistake. From a possible three-point lead, Schumacher was still seven points behind Häkkinen. Heading into the final race, the Japanese Grand Prix, Häkkinen held a four-point advantage over Schumacher, who started on pole but stalled and caused the start to be aborted, which meant he had to start from the back of the field. He made a comeback up to third but retired after hitting debris from an accident. Häkkinen won the Drivers' Championship by winning the final two races despite Schumacher being the polesitter both times, continuing Ferrari's longest World Championship drought.
In 1999, Schumacher's efforts helped Ferrari win the Constructors' Championship, the team's first title since 1983. He lost his chance to win the Drivers' Championship at the British Grand Prix at the high-speed Stowe Corner; his car's rear brake failed, sending him off the track into the barriers and resulting in a broken leg. During his 98-day absence, he was replaced by Finnish driver Mika Salo. About his return, Schumacher's teammate Irvine recalled: "It was amazing. I remember me and Mika Salo were testing at Mugello, which is one of the hardest circuits in the world—and he [Schumacher] hadn't driven for eight months. He got in the car and within a lap he was a tenth or two tenths slower than I was. How do you do that? And then of course a couple of laps later he's half a second quicker and—it's just impossible. It's really really annoying, but it was an honour to be able to see his telemetry and see the things he could do with a car." After missing six races, he made his return at the inaugural Malaysian Grand Prix, qualifying in pole position with his career's greatest pole margin, with his time faster than Irvine by almost a second. He then assumed the role of second driver, helping Irvine to victory and assisting his teammate's bid to win the Drivers' Championship for Ferrari, with Irvine leading the championship by one point. About Schumacher's role, Irvine stated: "He is not only the best driver in the world, he is also the best number two in the world." In the last race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix, Häkkinen won his second consecutive title after he beat him off the line. Schumacher later said that Häkkinen was "the best opponent I've had" and the one he respected the most.
In 2000, Schumacher won his third Drivers' Championship, his first with Ferrari, after a year-long battle with Häkkinen. Schumacher won the first three races of the season and five of the first eight. Midway through the year, Schumacher's chances suffered with three consecutive non-finishes, allowing Häkkinen to close the gap in the standings. At the German Grand Prix qualifying session, which was largely decided in the opening 10 minutes of semi-dry weather, Schumacher was able to improve his time in the final seconds and qualified second. In the race, he retired after crashing out at the start, as his new teammate Rubens Barrichello took his maiden win from 18th. Häkkinen then took another two victories, before Schumacher won at the Italian Grand Prix, his 41st career win. At the post-race press conference, after equalling the number of wins won by his idol Ayrton Senna, Schumacher broke into tears.
The championship fight came down to the penultimate race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix. Starting from pole position, Schumacher lost the lead to Häkkinen at the start. After his second pit stop, Schumacher came out ahead of Häkkinen and went on to win the race and the Drivers' Championship, the first for Ferrari since 1979, ending a 21-year drought; he later described it as the fight of his life. Although Schumacher won more than twice as many Grands Prix as Häkkinen, BBC Sport journalist Andrew Benson stated that "the challenge from Mika Hakkinen and McLaren-Mercedes was far stronger than the raw statistics suggest" and that the Adrian Newey-designed McLaren was "the fastest car in F1 for the third straight year". Benson also hailed Schumacher as "unquestionably the greatest driver of his era".
In 2001, Schumacher took his fourth Drivers' title. Four other drivers won races but none sustained a season-long challenge for the championship. Schumacher scored a record-tying nine wins and clinched the World Championship with four races yet to run. He finished the championship with 123 points, 58 ahead of runner-up Coulthard. Season highlights included the Spanish Grand Prix, where he won after Häkkinen retired on the last lap due to his car's clutch failing leading Schumacher to say he was sorry for him and that they had been "bloody lucky"; Canadian Grand Prix, where Schumacher finished second to his brother Ralf, thus scoring the first-ever 1–2 finish by brothers in Formula One; and the Belgian Grand Prix, in which Schumacher scored his 52nd career win, breaking Prost's record for most career wins that had stood since 1993.
In 2002, Schumacher retained his Drivers' Championship. In winning the Drivers' Championship, he equalled the record set by Juan Manuel Fangio of five World Championships. Ferrari won 15 out of 17 races, and Schumacher won the title with six races remaining in the season, which is still the earliest point in the season for a driver to be crowned World Champion. Schumacher broke his own record, shared with Mansell, of nine race wins in a season, by winning 11 times and finishing every race on the podium, the latter feat unmatched in the history of Formula One. He finished with 144 points, a record-breaking 67 points ahead of the runner-up, his teammate Barrichello. This pair finished nine of the 17 races in the first two places.
During the 2002 season, there was some controversy at the Austrian Grand Prix, where Barrichello was leading but in the final metres of the race, under team orders, slowed down to allow Schumacher to win the race. Although the switching of positions did not break any actual sporting or technical regulation, as Ferrari did the same at the Austrian Grand Prix the previous year where Schumacher finished second and Barrichello third, it angered fans and it was claimed that the team's actions showed a lack of sportsmanship and respect to the spectators. Many argued that Schumacher did not need to be given wins in only the sixth race of the season, which he would have won anyway, a view also shared by Jean Todt and Brawn in retrospect, particularly given that he had already won four of the previous five Grands Prix, and that Barrichello had dominated the race weekend up to that point. At the podium ceremony, Schumacher pushed Barrichello onto the top step, and the Ferrari team incurred a $1 million fine for this disturbance.
Schumacher vowed to pay back Barrichello, and later that same year returned the favour in several races to help him finish second in the standings. At the United States Grand Prix, Schumacher returned the favour, by giving Barrichello the win by 0.011 seconds, the second-closest margin on the finishing line in Formula One history in a failed dead heat finish. In an unplanned finish, Schumacher's explanation varied between it being him "returning the favour" for Austria, or trying to engineer a formation finish—a feat derided as near-impossible in a sport where timings are taken to within a thousandth of a second. After the end of the season, the FIA banned "team orders which interfere with the race result"; the ban was lifted for the 2011 season because the ruling was difficult to enforce.
Schumacher broke Fangio's 46-year record of five Drivers' Championships by winning the drivers' title for the sixth time in 2003, after a closely contested battle with his main rivals, which was also a result of lobbying regarding the Michelin tyres. Before the season started, the FIA introduced new regulations and a new points system to make the championship more open. The biggest competition came from the McLaren-Mercedes and Williams-BMW teams. In the first race, Schumacher was run off track, and he was involved in collisions in the following two. He fell 16 points behind McLaren's Kimi Räikkönen. Despite the death of his mother Elisabeth just hours before the race, Schumacher won the San Marino Grand Prix despite losing the first position going into turn one.
Schumacher won the next two races and closed within two points of Räikkönen. Aside from Schumacher's victory at the Canadian Grand Prix and Barrichello's victory at the British Grand Prix, the mid-season was dominated by Williams drivers Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya, who each claimed two victories. After the Hungarian Grand Prix, Schumacher led Montoya and Räikkönen by only one and two points, respectively. Ahead of the next race, the FIA announced changes to the way tyre widths were to be measured: this forced Michelin, supplier to Williams and McLaren among others, to rapidly redesign their tyres before the Italian Grand Prix. Schumacher, running on Bridgestone tyres, won the next two races. After Montoya was penalised in the United States Grand Prix, only Schumacher and Räikkönen remained in contention for the title. At the final round, the Japanese Grand Prix, Schumacher needed only one point whilst Räikkönen needed to win. By finishing the race in eighth place, Schumacher took one point and assured his sixth Drivers' title, ending the season two points ahead of Räikkönen.
In 2004, Schumacher won a record 12 of the first 13 races of the season, including the inaugural Bahrain Grand Prix, with the Japanese Grand Prix as his last win of the season, only failing to finish in Monaco after an accident with Montoya during a safety car period. In August 2004, Schumacher's win at the Hungarian Grand Prix contributed to Ferrari's sixth consecutive Constructors' Championship, and he later clinched a seventh Drivers' Championship at the Belgian Grand Prix. Earlier in July at the French Grand Prix, Schumacher beat polesitter Fernando Alonso with a four-stop strategy. He finished the season with a record 148 points, 34 points ahead of the runner-up Barrichello, and set a new record of 13 race wins out of a possible 18, surpassing his previous best of 11 wins from the 2002 season. Between 2000 and 2004, Schumacher achieved five Drivers' Championships, 48 wins, and almost all Formula One records. With his fifth Drivers' Championship in a row, he also broke Fangio's record of consecutive titles that had stood for nearly fifty years.
Rule changes for the 2005 season required tyres to last an entire race, tipping the overall advantage to teams using Michelins over teams like Ferrari that relied on Bridgestone tyres. The rule changes were partly in an effort to dent Ferrari's dominance and make the series more interesting. The most notable moment of the early season for Schumacher was his battle with Renault R25 driver Fernando Alonso at the San Marino Grand Prix, where he started 13th and finished only 0.2 seconds behind Alonso. Less than halfway through the season, Schumacher stated: "I don't think I can count myself in this battle any more. It was like trying to fight with a blunted weapon. If your weapons are weak you don't have a chance." Schumacher's sole win in 2005 came at the United States Grand Prix in a 1–2 finish with Barrichello. Before that race, the Michelin tyres were found to have significant safety issues. When no compromise between the teams and the FIA could be reached, all but the three teams using Bridgestone tyres dropped out of the race after the formation lap, leaving only six drivers on the grid. Schumacher retired in 6 of the 19 races, and finished the season in third with 62 points, fewer than half the points of World Champion Alonso.
2006 became the last season of Schumacher's Ferrari career. After three races, Schumacher had just 11 points and was already 17 points behind Alonso. He won the following two races; his pole position at San Marino Grand Prix was his 66th, breaking Senna's 12-year-old record, which was described as perhaps the greatest record that stood in the sport, and was a reversal of the 2005 race. Schumacher was stripped of pole position at the Monaco Grand Prix and started the race at the back of the grid, as he stopped his car and blocked part of the circuit while Alonso was on his qualifying lap; he still managed to work his way up to fifth place on the notoriously cramped Monaco Circuit. Before the Turkish Grand Prix, the fourteenth race of the season, the FIA banned Renault's mass damper, with the superior Renault R26 suddenly no longer as competitive.
By the Canadian Grand Prix, the ninth race of the season, Schumacher was 25 points behind Alonso; he then won the following three races, including at Hockenheim, to reduce his disadvantage to 11, and to 10 by Turkey. Since Canada, Ferrari won six out of seven races, including at the Monza Circuit, with Schumacher winning in five of them. After further victories at the Italian Grand Prix, where he announced his retirement at the end of the season, and at the Chinese Grand Prix, in what would be his 91st and final career win, Schumacher led in the championship standings for the first time during the season. After his win in Italy, Ferrari issued a press release stating that Schumacher would retire from racing at the end of the 2006 season but would continue working for the team. The tifosi and the Italian press, who did not always take to Schumacher's relatively cold public persona, displayed an affectionate response after he announced his retirement.
After qualifying second, Schumacher led the Japanese Grand Prix in what could have seen him heading into the season finale with two points ahead of Alonso. With only 16 laps to go, his car suffered an engine failure for the first time since the French Grand Prix in 2000, ending a 58-race sequence without a mechanical retirement, handing Alonso the victory. He also conceded the title; to win the Drivers' Championship, Schumacher would have had to win the final race and Alonso had to fail to score any point, and he did not wish to win the title like that.
A fuel pressure problem prevented Schumacher from completing a single lap during the third qualifying session, forcing him to start the race in tenth position. Early in the race, Schumacher moved up to sixth place but suffered a puncture caused by the front wing of Giancarlo Fisichella's Renault. Schumacher fell to 19th place, 70 seconds behind teammate and race leader Felipe Massa. Schumacher recovered and overtook both Fisichella and Räikkönen, his successor at Ferrari following his retirement, to secure fourth place. His performance was praised, as he had the pace to win the race by a lap, and was variously classified in the press as "heroic", an "utterly breath-taking drive", and a "performance that ... sums up his career".
During the following weeks, Schumacher, Brawn, Byrne, and Todt were credited for turning the struggling Ferrari team into the most successful team in Formula One history, with Schumacher winning 72 Grands Prix and five consecutive Drivers' titles there. At the end of 2006, Schumacher's 91 wins were 40 more than his nearest rival Prost. Schumacher held at least 31 records, including for most championship titles (7), consecutive titles (5), race victories (91), consecutive wins (7, 2004), wins with one team (72, Ferrari), wins at same Grand Prix (8, France), wins at different Grands Prix (20), time between first and last wins (14 years, 1 month, and 2 days), second places (43), podiums (154), consecutive podium finishes (19, 2001–2002), points finishes (190), laps leading (4.741, or 22,155 km), pole positions (68), front row starts (115), fastest laps (76), doubles (pole and win, 40), hat-tricks (pole, fastest lap, and win, 22), championship points (1,369), consecutive race finishes (24, 2001–2003), consecutive points finishes (24), points in a season for the runner-up (121 out of 180, 2006), wins in a season for the runner-up (7, 2006), races for same car and engine builder (180, Ferrari), wins at Indianapolis (5), wins at Monza (5), wins in a season (13, 2004), fastest laps in a season (10, 2004), points scored in a season (148, 2004), podium finishes in a season (17, 2002), championship won with most races left (6, 2002), and consecutive years with a win (15).
During the 2007 season, Schumacher acted as Ferrari's adviser and Jean Todt's super assistant. Schumacher also helped Ferrari with their development programme at the Jerez Circuit. He focused on testing electronics and tyres for the 2008 season. During 2008, Schumacher also competed in motorcycle racing in the IDM Superbike series. At a Superbike cup race at the Pannónia-Ring, Schumacher finished third out of twenty-seven—behind professional motorcycle racers Martin Bauer and Andreas Meklau—riding a Honda CBR1000RR.
At the Hungarian Grand Prix on 25 July 2009, Ferrari's Felipe Massa was seriously injured after being struck by a suspension spring during qualifying. Ferrari announced that they planned to draft in Schumacher for the European Grand Prix and subsequent Grands Prix until Massa was able to race again. Schumacher tested a modified Ferrari F2007 to prepare himself as he had been unable to test the Ferrari F60 due to testing restrictions. Ferrari appealed for special permission for Schumacher to test in a 2009 season spec car; Williams, Red Bull, and Toro Rosso were against this test. In the end, Schumacher was forced to call off his return due to the severity of the neck injury he had received in a motorcycle accident earlier in the year. Instead, Massa's place was first filled by Luca Badoer and later on by Fisichella. Schumacher described this aborted return to Formula One as his "toughest moment".
