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Remembering Michael Schumacher's first world title triumph in 1994

13.11.2019

13 November 1994 is a poignant day in the history of Grand Prix racing... it is a quarter-century since Micheal Schumacher won his first Formula 1 world championship and an epic it turned out to be.

Michael had, of course, arrived in F1 three years prior to his controversial 1991 Belgian Grand Prix debut in place of the taxi driver-bashing Bertrand Gachot. He out-qualified veteran teammate Andrea de Cesaris and retired on the first lap at Spa-Francorchamps, but - prompted by Ross Brawn's suggestion - he was summarily snapped up by Benetton F1 boss Flavio Briatore to the consternation of Eddie Jordan.

Michael promptly scored a couple of points in his second race for Benetton and won his first race a year later at a wet Spa, ending third and fourth in the ’92 and ’93 world drivers championships. 1994 was however to prove a most significant year as so much changed on so many fronts, not least Formula 1. 

One of the highlights of that dramatic season was Schumacher’s stunning rise to prominence. Driving an under-fancied Ford V8-powered Benetton B194 backed by what was to become an F1 Super Team against the might of Ayrton Senna’s Williams Renault V10 and the V12 Ferraris, Michael swept to double victories in the opening Brazilian and Pacific Grands Prix.

Then everything changed one fateful weekend at Imola. The awful San Marino Grand Prix weekend took the lives of Senna and Roland Ratzenberger — it was a race meeting that had an adverse effect on the world, let alone on Formula 1. Michael put the tragedy behind him to strap into his Benetton and win that San Marino Grand Prix, but the weekend’s events had taken their tole on him.

“Schumacher was the Pavarotti of driving a race car,” former team boss Briatore explained. “He changed after the death of Senna — he seriously considered whether to stop motor racing. Fortunately for us all, he stayed with it.”

It was a dramatic time — F1 reacted to the Imola tragedy by implementing sweeping safety changes and measures to slow the cars, but through it all Schummie shone, winning again in Monaco, before delivering an incredible second place with his car stuck in gear in Spain.

Two more wins followed on the trot in France and England before a lean second half of the season that only yielded wins in Hungary and at the European Grand Prix and a second behind Damon Hill and his rejuvenated Renault. That set up a controversial title decider in Australia settled in Schumacher’s favour. 

Of course Michael went on to deliver a back-to-back title in ’95 before moving to Ferrari to eventually take the great Maranello team to five Formula 1 world championships on the trot. But 1994 was a landmark Formula 1 year  — a heartbreaking changing of the guard, so to say, as the King was dead, the new King ascended to the throne.

To celebrate the fact, a most exclusive book has been published to celebrate Michael's first of an incredible seven titles in what, was perhaps the most tumultuous season of the lot.

Report by Michele Lupini

Only 194 copies of the new book celebrating 25 years of Michael Schumacher's first world championship will be printed. Read more about the new book MSC Blue here:

>>https://www.paddock-legends.com/p-6513/?kat=538

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