Mick Schumacher and his father's legendary Benetton B194

Among the highlights of young Mick Schumacher’s young career have been the honour of driving various of his great father Michael’s Formula 1 cars and not least of all, the Benetton that took Michael to his first world championship.

Mick drove dad’s B194 during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend two years ago to celebrate 25th years since Michael’s first Formula 1 victory at the hallowed venue in 1992. Roll on two years and it is now a quarter-century since Michael wrapped up his first world title too.

“I’m just amazed by the car,” Mick admitted after driving the Benetton B194. “It was an absolute pleasure to drive — I was so happy, so emotional — there's a lot of history there for my father.”

Mick was nonplussed by Lewis Hamilton equaling his dad’s 68 pole positions record that Belgian Grand Prix weekend: “I always look back at my dad’s career but records are there to be broken so well done to Lewis Hamilton!” Michael Schumacher’s record of 91 grand prix victories however still stands.

The Benetton B194-05 Mick drove in Belgium is the chassis his dad steered to victory through the 1997 midseason at Imola, Monaco, Canada and France, plus a second place in Jerez, contributing 46 of Michael's 92 world championship points that year.

With electronic driver aids banned, Ross Brawn designed the B194 light and nimble, it handled well and proved unbeatable in Michael's hands as he raced to six wins through the first seven races of a tragic '94 season marred by Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger’s deaths at Imola.

The comparatively underpowered B194 was however so competitive in Schumacher’s hands that it came under the FIA microscope, but while nothing was ever proven on its alleged driver aids, a controversial call on its wooden skid plate ‘plank' saw Michael out for two races. Still he fought back to win the title.

Asked what was so special about the B194 package, designer Ross Brawn has always fingered Michael Schumacher as the factor that singled it out. "The car was very simple — it had a V8 with a very low centre of gravity, but the big advantage really was Michael’s talent, attitude and attention to detail.”

That much was underlined by the fact that while Schumacher won seven races in his march to the ‘94 title, the best his trio of teammates through the year, JJ Lehto, Jos Verstappen or Johnny Herbert could muster, was Max’s dad Jos Verstappen’s fifth in Portugal.

Schumacher admitted years later that the B194 was a handful to drive with a twitchy at the rear end, a fact that Herbert and Verstappen have both since reiterated: "It was a very difficult car,” Jos explained.

“You could not feel the limit and so you'd push and then suddenly it would have oversteer. Normally when you get oversteer you can control it but the B194 would go very suddenly and so you ended up having a spin — I had big problems with that car.”

Today Benetton B194-05 is part of the Michael Schumacher collection on display at Motorworld — it is unique in that it is the only of the B195 chassis to retain the original Ford 3.5 V8 after most of those units were later converted to 3-litres.

Young Mick Schumacher has since gone on to win the 2018 FIA European Formula 3 championship and this year, he took a maiden Formula 2 title as he continues to follow in his dad’s footsteps — the stuff of which legends are made.

To celebrate the occasion, the helmet used by Mick, when he drove the iconic B194 was made especially for the event at Spa-Francorchamps, was made by Jens Munser Design (JMD). The livery is split in half with Mick's 2017 Formula 3 design on the right-side and Michael's design from 1994 on the left.

The historic moment has been immortalised with the release of the 250 limited-edition, high-quality 3D--style prints produced to mark the occasion, each presented in a high-quality 4cm thick aluminium frame and museum standard, anti-reflective glass and available through Paddock Legends.