I'm Not F1's Main Man, Says Schumacher

Michael Schumacher says he does not vote and definitely does not consider himself the most powerful man in Formula One.

But he is the clear favourite to win Sunday's Spanish Formula One Grand Prix - a fourth victory in five races this season that would make the German, more than ever, Ferrari's number one.

The race will be either his 97th or 98th start. Ferrari say the latter but statisticians note that the team have included the 1996 French Grand Prix which he never actually raced in despite qualifying on pole.

Until this weekend, Austrian Gerhard Berger could still claim parity with Schumacher, ahead of Italian Michele Alboreto on 80 and France's Jean Alesi on 79.

But in reality no other Ferrari driver comes close to matching Schumacher's achievements since he joined the most evocative and glamorous team in motor racing as a double champion in 1996.

Of his 56 career victories, 37 have come in the scarlet cars from Maranello - more than double the tally notched up by Austria's three-times champion Niki Lauda and 31 more than Berger's haul.

Austria is the only race in the Championship that Schumacher has yet to win, and last year he became the first driver to score back to back Championships for the team since Italian Alberto Ascari in 1953.

This season he is well on course to make it three titles in a row and become only the second man since the late Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio to win five titles.

Red Baron

To many fans, Schumacher is the Red Baron of Grand Prix racing, if not the King himself. The latest issue of the monthly F1 magazine, a glossy supported by Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone, listed Schumacher as the most powerful person in a list of the sport's movers and shakers.

Ecclestone was second in the 'Power 100', ahead of Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo and International Automobile Federation (FIA) head Max Mosley. Schumacher laughed it all off when he appeared at a regular FIA news conference on Thursday.

"I didn't know I paid Bernie so much money," he declared. "If I rate the job certain people do in our team to the amount of work I have to do, I should probably not even be on the list among the top 100."

The German, an accomplished expert in paddock politics, also turned his attention to the bigger picture when questioned about a recent interview in which he said that he did not vote in elections.

With France going through much soul-searching after low voter turnout in presidential polls led to far right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen reaching the final round, Schumacher clarified his stance.

As a Swiss resident, he said he felt it was right to leave voting in Germany to the people who lived there.