2002: the year Michael Schumacher described as 'perfect'

Ominously though, Schumacher did exactly that and won the first race of 2002 anyway, before ceding places one and two to brother Ralf and Williams-BMW team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya in Malaysia. But despite these early strong results, those at Maranello weren’t content in simply just carrying on with their old car’s philosophy.

The design team’s method for continuing the lineage of success was to junk what they had previously known before in order to take their success up to another level.

And they had the perfect driver – one who loved getting stuck into testing – with which to do it. Schumacher had chalked up 54 race wins in the ten years prior to 2002, but in terms of win-rate, he was only just getting started.

The key to Ferrari’s new racing iteration was weight – or lack of it. Byrne and his boys made the greatest gains in this area through the gearbox and were inspired by the design of their Italian compatriots, Minardi.

Ferrari had barely changed its basic gearbox assembly and construction since the early ‘90s and, despite winning recent titles in ‘99’, 00 and ’01, took Faenza inspiration to construct the F2002’s gearbox casing from lightweight titanium alloy, while also making it significantly smaller and stiffer than the previous version.

This, combined with the lighter suspension and uprights, meant the centre of the car’s gravity was much lower, giving the team more room to play with in terms of moving ballast around.

The F2002’s aggressive coke-bottle shape also allowed increased air-flow to be directed towards the diffuser and rear wing, helping the car to have a considerable advantage in terms of aerodynamic efficiency.

The new Tipo 51 3-litre V10 wasn’t bad either, producing 835bhp at a canter, which could be turned up to 900bhp in qualifying. Whilst perhaps not a match for Williams’ BMW power-unit in terms of sheer power, the drivability of the horses afforded, combined with the chassis, were still more than enough to see the Cavallino through.

“What makes it so special is that in every area we’ve been able to improve the car,” Schumacher commented on the F2002 in an interview with James Allen. “Although last year’s car was a very good car, we’ve gone a step further.”

What further helped was Ferrari’s increasing closeness to tyre supplier Bridgestone. With other top teams running Michelins, the Japanese companies focus was firmly on Ferrari, which suited them fine.

“We have Bridgestone on our side, which develop very well together with us, we have a lot of time [developing the tyre],” the German commented on the special relationship. “We have a special test car [which] does all the development with them. And all these [things] just work hand in hand is probably one reason of the success.”

It was a flying start for the new Ferrari. Schumacher won right out of the box in the F2002’s first race at Interlagos, taking the win by half a second from the sibling Schumacher. Asked if he’d been under pressure, he said “It wasn’t that bad.”

Schumacher then claimed victory by 17sec from team-mate Rubens Barrichello at Imola. Then he won in Spain too.

The Ferrari driver then jumped the Williams at the first stops before the German committed a rare mistake and crossed the pit-lane exit line – cue a drive through penalty.

Dropping again to third, Schumacher once more got past Montoya at the stops before Räikkönen then slipped off at the hairpin on oil left by Allan McNish’s Toyota to relinquish first place and allow the Ferrari to romp home to the win and drivers’ championship – with a record six races still remaining of the season.

“I’ve never been good at these moments to find appropriate words,” a visibly moved Schumacher said after the race. “It just has overcome me. Suddenly when I was leading, and felt I was going to win the championship, that was the worst five laps I’ve had in my career. The outbreak I had was pretty heavy, and that’s when I realised how much pressure I was under.”

The German emphatically equalled Juan Manuel Fangio’s record of five crowns, and with more race wins (65) became the most successful F1 driver of all time up to that point.

Later on that season, so far ahead of rest were Ferrari, he could afford to repay Barrichello by letting him past to win the US GP in Indianapolis, braking so that the Brazilian won by barely half a brick.

“In my heart I got even with what happened in Austria, I felt I had to do something,” he commented on that grand prix giveaway.

Quite simply, the overall performance of driver, team and car was stunning, as the German himself was ready to admit.

“No, clearly no,” was Schumacher’s answer on ITV when asked if the year could’ve been any better. “It has been a fantastic season with many achievements, with many good races, a lot of emotions, so it’s been a beautiful year.

“If you look at my emotions and the way I’ve been after the race [in France when he won the ’02 title], crossing the line, all those pictures explain far more than I could put into words.”

The recent introduction of sprint race qualifying has drawn comparisons with 2002 and attempts to spice up the action. So dominant were Ferrari driver and team that F1 felt pressured for 2003 to enter bring in an all-new qualifying format and points system in the hope of stopping the all-encompassing dominance of the champion package. Schumacher didn’t seem unduly worried come the season’s close.

“We have a saying in Germany,” he said when pressed on these changes aimed at stopping him and his Scuderia team. “You eat nothing as hot as you cook it. Let’s wait and see.”

As it turned out, not even the raft of new rule changes or coming man Kimi Räikkönen could stop the Schumacher-Ferrari axis. They won the titles in 2003 again anyway, with a whole lot more Il Canto degli Italiani from the podium.