Analysis: Schumacher Joins Prost in 50-Wins Club

It took Alain Prost 192 Grands Prix to become the first man to reach the 50 victories total in Formula One. On Sunday, on Prost's home soil at the French Grand Prix, German Michael Schumacher equalled that landmark achievement by joining the golden club in only his 155th race.

If he continues his winning ways, the 32-year old triple World Champion will equal Prost's record of 51 wins at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on July 15 and pass it in front of the vast army of his compatriots at Hockenheim in the German Grand Prix, two weeks later.

Then, if his fortune and form continues, he could well confirm his fourth drivers' world crown in Ferrari's home race at Monza at the Italian Grand Prix in September. If he completes this impressive sequence, Schumacher would then surely be acclaimed as not only the greatest driver of the modern era, but one of the greatest of all time.

He would be fit to compare to anyone including such heroes of past generations as Prost, Brazilian Ayrton Senna, Britons Jackie Stewart, Jim Clark and Stirling Moss and the five-times champion Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio. In winning 50 races, Schumacher has proved, as Prost admitted during the weekend of the French Grand Prix, that he belongs among the greats.

Deserved Record

"He deserves this kind of record," said Prost, now running his own team, which is struggling for success in Formula One. "I know he has been motivated very much to get this kind of record, which is understandable. You cannot win more than 50 races if you're not good and he is the best at the moment, one of the best of all time and he deserves to have this record."

Schumacher himself admitted that landmark records did spur him on.

"I want to make something clear," he said after winning Sunday's race. "And that is that my main focus is to win races and championships and that I am not racing for statistics. But though they are not my first target, they are very important to me. To win 50 Grands Prix is something very special."

Unfortunately, for Schumacher, a whiff of controversy still hangs around some of his wins and some of his achievements and only time will see it fade from memory. His triumphant championship season with Ferrari last year wiped away much of that and another 'double' with the Italian team would certainly ensure he has a lustrous reputation.

Prost, after all, despite joining Ferrari in 1990 as the man to inspire their revival and winning twelve races, was never able to celebrate a Championship with the Maranello outfit.

Transforming Ferrari

By contrast, Schumacher is now in his sixth year with Ferrari and has transformed them from perennial also-rans into winners with a consistency that has made him and them the envy of the pitlane. And that, as well as his total of wins, deserves recognition as he guides Ferrari this year to what seems to be an inevitable drivers' and constructors' double.

After Sunday's French race, Schumacher led the drivers' table with 78 points to nearest rival Briton David Coulthard's total of 47 while Ferrari led the Constructors' Championship with 108 points to 56.

"It is a very comfortable lead," said Schumacher. "But until it is mathematically impossible for me to lose, I will keep fighting all the way."

Such spirit is the reason he has won three titles and on Sunday joined Prost in the 50-winners club.