When Michael Schumacher drove his first few laps in Kerpen, he was following in the footsteps of Count Wolfgang von Trips, the nobleman who so nearly became Germany's first Formula 1 World Champion. The kart track Schumacher started on was owned by the von Trips family. Ultimately, Schumacher's career was to have a far happier ending than the unfortunate von Trips. During the 1961 Italian GP, where von Trips was expected to secure the title, the likeable German collided with Jim Clark's Lotus which launched the little red Ferrari up an embankment and into the crowd. Germany's great hope was dead, along with 11 spectators.

Schumacher's big break came when he was picked up by the Mercedes junior sports car team, along with Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Karl Wendlinger. All three were tipped for the top and, indeed, they did all make it to Formula 1, but Michael's star shone brightest. His impact upon F1 was immediate when he produced a stunning qualifying performance at the 1991 Belgian GP on the daunting Spa-Francorchamps circuit to line up seventh on the grid. The car Schumacher was driving was a Jordan, the Irish team in their first year of F1 competition. Team boss Eddie Jordan needed a replacement driver in a hurry after regular driver Bertrand Gachot was jailed in England for spraying CS gas in the face of a taxi driver.

By the time of the next race Schumacher was a Benetton driver, the team with which he was to win his first two world titles. His first victory came a year later, fittingly at Spa. 1994 brought him his first World Championship, but it was a hollow victory. Ayrton Senna, a driver who Schumacher admired very much and a triple World Champion, died following an accident in San Marino. Rookie driver Roland Ratzenberger had been killed on the same circuit just 24 hours previously. With Senna's death the motor racing world missed out on what surely would have been several classic seasons of racing with Schumacher. In many respects the two drivers were very similar. Highly focused, supremely fit and willing to take any action necessary to win. Senna had been disqualified in 1989 after colliding with bitter rival Alain Prost in the title decider. Likewise, Schumacher would be disqualified in 1997 for attempting to take out Jacques Villeneuve.

Many thought that Schumacher was crazy when he announced he was leaving Benetton at the end of 1995, the year of his second title, to move to Ferrari. Ferrari had only won a single race in the preceding

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