Analysis: A Race Like No Other for Sad Schumacher

Tragedy and controversy have hung over some of Formula One World Champion Michael Schumacher's victories in the past, but Sunday's San Marino Grand Prix win was like no other.

In 1994, he won at Imola on an afternoon blighted by the death of Brazilian Ayrton Senna. But the German was young then, without even one of his five World Championships, and the true magnitude of that day only sank in later.

On Sunday, he should have basked in the warm adoration of Ferrari's home fans as he steered the most successful racing car the Maranello factory has ever built to one final victory.

Instead he and his younger brother Ralf, a winner at Imola in happier circumstances in 2001, faced a test of their mental strength and mettle - racing only hours after the death of their mother Elisabeth, 55.

"Obviously you ask yourself in a situation like this if it's worth racing or not," Ralf said on his website on Saturday. "But after the first shock it became clear you can't drop everything. No one can."

They had flown by private jet from Bologna to the Cologne hospital where she was in a coma for a final farewell before returning on Saturday night with speculation running wild about whether they would race.

Some suggested they might do a few symbolic laps before pulling over. They had not reckoned with the Schumacher brothers determination. Neither Ferrari nor Ralf's Williams team applied any pressure on either to race and it was not needed anyway.

"Ralf had a difficult week, but it was never an issue for him, even though he would have to forget his emotions, because a Grand Prix driver has to concentrate 100 per cent when he is in the cockpit," said Ralf's team boss Frank Williams.

Karting Track

Both did what they were sure their mother, who once sold sausages at the Kerpen go-kart track in their home town near Cologne where they honed their skills, would have wanted.

"My mother loved to be at the karting track when we were in our karts in Kerpen and loved to see us racing," Schumacher said in a statement issued through his spokeswoman. "My mother and father had always supported us. They made it possible to do what we do and she would have wanted that we did this race today, I am sure.

"Everybody in the team - our president, technicians, mechanics, the cook - has given me the feeling, over this terrible day today, how much they back me," said Schumacher. "It did me good."

Gerhard Berger, a motorsport director for Williams' engine partner BMW, knew what the brothers were going through having lost his father shortly before the 1997 German Grand Prix. Berger won that race for Benetton.

"The nicest part of this story is seeing them on the front row of the grid together and nicer still was Michael winning," said the Austrian.

At the end of the race, with Ralf fourth, Michael stayed in his car before emerging to be embraced by Brazilian teammate Rubens Barrichello and team boss Jean Todt's protective arm around his shoulder.

New Dimension

"Today again, Michael has shown the dimension of what he is as a driver and as a man," said Todt. "It's a shame sometimes that people may not understand what he is. Today I think he has done a big demonstration and we are very proud of him."

The sombre mood, Schumacher's evident grief and his bearing on a muted podium left a lasting impression of a driver who has often been criticised for being too clinical, too unemotional. He did not do his familiar leap, did not spray the champagne. It was no celebration but the most successful racing driver ever, seen by some as a winning machine, emerged with considerable sympathy.

"Accusations of arrogance have surrounded Michael Schumacher since his Formula One debut a dozen years ago," wrote Richard Williams, author of a biography of Enzo Ferrari, in the Guardian newspaper on Monday.

"His collisions with Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve in the climactic races of 1994 and 1997 put a lasting question mark against his sporting ethics. His brother, too, has been criticised for lacking social graces.

"Yesterday, however, they responded to their bereavement with impressive dignity before going home to nurse their private sorrow."