Such was the dominance of Michael Schumacher and Ferrari back in the early 2000s that on 2 September 2004, Autosport could bring news of the great German sealing his seventh F1 world title, a record since matched by Lewis Hamilton.
Schumacher won his title at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, though the race itself was won by McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen with the Ferrari man coming in second to put himself 40 points clear of team-mate Rubens Barichello with just four races left.
Amid the proper tributes to Schumacher’s brilliance, there was much talk about the nature of Spa following a series of collisions and near misses that could have had more serious consequences than they did. Autosport columnist Jonathan Noble wrote that, “If you take away all the danger from F1, you will take away much of the sport’s soul.”
That is easier to say from the press box than behind the wheel perhaps, but at the sharp end, Mark Webber summed it up in saying, “We need to maintain Eau Rouge, keep it smooth and safe at the top because you are playing with people’s lives through there – we’re doing 185mph at the exit. They’ve made the right compromise. Still, if you have a problem there, it will be a big one.”
Elsewhere, Autosport was reporting of rumours of a Grand Prix Masters series to be launched in 2005, featuring the likes of Nigel Mansell, Alan Jones, Jean Alesi and Keke Rosberg. The idea was for the golden greats to race each other across the world, driving identical 600bhp single seaters, the cars to be produced by Zytek. In the end, only three races took place, but it remains a pretty good idea if Liberty Media are reading this here…
