Grapevine: Schumacher to Drive Gonzalez's Ferrari

Michael Schumacher is a little worried about the brakes on the Ferrari he will drive on Sunday. Fortunately for Ferrari fans and their triple World Champion, the car is not his regular F2001 but the 375 model that brought the Italian team their first ever victory at Silverstone in 1951.

Schumacher is due to drive the car, part of a collection belonging to Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone, for a demonstration lap on Sunday morning before the serious business begins at the British Grand Prix.

"I'm looking forward to it," said the German at a presentation by partners Shell to mark 50 years of Ferrari success on Friday evening. "I just had my picture taken in the car. I think they should check the brakes because they didn't seem to work. I am looking forward to driving it if the brakes work."

Schumacher did not seem to be aware, until told, who the owner of the car was. The German had been due to meet Argentine Jose Froilan Gonzalez, the corpulent "Pampas Bull" who secured the historic victory by beating compatriot Juan Manuel Fangio's Alfa Romeo into second place on July 14th 1951. But Gonzalez, now 78, was unable to travel from Argentina due to poor health and sent a video message instead. "I wish you very good luck, Schumi," he said.

Matricide

Gonzalez earned himself a lasting place in Enzo Ferrari's heart, with a black and white photograph of him adorning the wall of the Commendatore's office in Maranello, after the historic first win. The win marked the first time a normally aspirated engine had beaten a supercharged one in Formula One and Alfa Romeo pulled out at the end of the season.

It earned Gonzalez a gold watch and left Ferrari, who had split acrimoniously from Alfa 13 years previously, with torn emotions. "I wept with joy, but my tears of happiness were blended with tears of sadness for I thought that day 'I have killed my mother'," he wrote years later.

"It was really an extraordinary race, to be able to defeat Alfa Romeo," recalled Gonzalez this week. "After so many years I realise what an important victory it was for all Ferrari fans around the world."

Since then, Ferrari have won another 140 grands prix.

Former race mechanic Ener Vecchi, back at Silverstone 50 years on, recalled that Gonzalez was not short on confidence ahead of the race. "It was a very flat circuit, very fast and dangerous but Gonzalez was always very quick around it. He was so quick that he used to come and taunt the other drivers - 'Hey, guys, I'm going to win tomorrow.'"

Two weeks before the Silverstone race, Gonzalez had clambered out of his Ferrari to allow Italian teammate Alberto Ascari to take the car to second place in the French Grand Prix at Reims. "As I didn't have an official contract at the time, I didn't feel bad about that," he said. But before Silverstone he signed a full contract and his loyalty was rewarded.

Gonzalez had started on pole after qualifying a second faster than Fangio and, after a battle with Fangio, led his compatriot by a minute and a half when he came in for a pitstop to refuel and change tyres. There he found Ascari, standing out of his car which had retired with gearbox problems.

Expecting once again to be asked to make way for his teammate, in the days when team orders meant drivers could change cars, Gonzalez started to get out of the car. But mechanics held him in as Ferrari made clear that he, and not Ascari, was being allowed to go on and win.

Schumacher may well win again for Ferrari on Sunday, for a record-equalling 51st career victory, but his teammate Rubens Barrichello can at least rest easy that he will not be required to surrender his car.