Schumacher's extraordinary but controversial '99 comeback

Twenty years ago, Michael Schumacher looked poised to finally end Ferrari's Formula 1 title drought in his fourth season with the team. A crash in Canada cost him his points lead, but he was still right on the tail of McLaren's reigning champion Mika Hakkinen.

Then a brake failure sent Schumacher into the Stowe barriers on the first lap of the British Grand Prix and left him with a broken leg that sidelined him for three months and appeared to have handed Hakkinen a second title unopposed.

But Schumacher's team-mate Eddie Irvine rose to the challenge and mounted a Ferrari title bid of his own, his cause helped by a series of slip-ups from Hakkinen and McLaren.

By the time Schumacher was fit to return for the penultimate round of the championship - the inaugural Malaysian GP at Sepang - Hakkinen was only two points ahead of Irvine.

This is what happened next, as described by Andrew Benson in Autosport magazine's original race report.

An appeal court will decide if McLaren's Mika Hakkinen won the drivers' world championship by inheriting first in the inaugural Malaysian Grand Prix, but the race left no doubt about who is the best driver in the world.

Michael Schumacher dominated the weekend in a way that undermined the claims of any of the 1999 title contenders.

He and his Ferrari team-mate, Eddie Irvine, may have been disqualified, but the assistance afforded by their F399s by a bargeboard that contravened the rules was debatable. It should not detract from Schumacher's comeback - it could not possibly account for the one second a lap advantage he had over the rest.

Had the need to fight for the championship not taken precedence, he would have scored a crushing and demoralising win at the Sepang track on Sunday. Even so, he made his point in style.

On pole by nearly a second, his superiority was magnified in the race. Away from the start, he fairly flew away from the field, pulling out 1.798s in the first lap, and extending the margin to 3.167s next time around.

His point made, he set about fulfilling his other task for the weekend - giving his team-mate a hefty leg-up in his attempt to beat Hakkinen to the title. As with his driving, Schumacher made the operation of clinical - and some would say cynical - team tactics look easy.

He slowed his pace dramatically on lap three, let Irvine by next time round, and spent the rest of the race doing what was necessary to ensure the Irishman won, while holding Hakkinen at bay to take second.

He did the job to perfection, but it must have been one of the hardest things the proud and selfish German has ever done.

"I knew what my job was. I would prefer to win the race, but it doesn't make sense" Michael Schumacher

For three and a half years he has slaved away at Ferrari trying to take a substandard car to the world title. He wanted to go down in history as the man who had ended the most famous losing streak in F1 by winning the team's first drivers' crown since 1979.

Yet here he was having to let his underling, a man with a fraction of his talent, by into the lead for a golden opportunity to take the honour himself.

"I knew what my job was," Schumacher said, the tone of his voice and the look on his face revealing more than the words that came slowly from his mouth. "When the team said 'Thank you', I said, 'He's done it for three-and-a-half years for me, so it's pretty natural to do the same as I would expect people to do for me'.

"I would prefer to win the race, but it doesn't make sense. There is no point in being glorious and afterwards we don't win the championship. Then we would look stupid."

One could argue he could afford to sound magnanimous. By then he had made the point McLaren had so feared he might - that without his broken leg, his dream would probably already be achieved.

"We improved the performance of the real Ferrari and not what was seen by the people in past races," Schumacher said. Undoubtedly, the team made more of the car in Malaysia than it had for some time, but most of what it was able to achieve before the technical department of the sport's governing body got involved was made possible by this giant of a racer.

"He's depressing," Irvine said in tribute later. "He's the best number one and the best number two!

"We couldn't have done this without him. One of the good things about having Michael's input is he comes up with totally different theories. He calmed the situation down."

Without him, the Irishman would have been in trouble. "The front end of my car was very sharp on turn-in," he said. "I was worried I would spin. It was a matter of settling into a pace I was comfortable with and letting Michael do all the hard work."

Having let Irvine by, the idea was to keep both McLarens away from him. This was where Schumacher made his one mistake.

David Coulthard, showing admirable aggression, barged past him at Turn 2 on lap four in a style similar to that which the German has previously employed on him. The McLaren man then set about making Irvine's life very difficult indeed.

"That was not part of the plan," Schumacher smiled. "I didn't expect David to go down the inside, but he shocked me a bit - perhaps that is partially to do with me being away for so long. We touched and I had a damaged car later in the race because of that."

Coulthard was much quicker than Irvine, and it seemed only a matter of time before he went by. Had he done so, the race would have been turned on its head.

"I was pissed off. It was frustrating. Michael was not consistent in the fast corners. I always had to be careful in case he was going to brake in surprising places" Mika Hakkinen

But, on lap 15, McLaren fragility let him down again. Coulthard ground to a halt, his fuel pressure at zero.

It was a bitter blow. "What is frustrating," said team boss Ron Dennis, "is we have phenomenal reliability at the moment - our testing reliability has been exceptional.

"The plan was working. He was going to give Eddie a very hard time. Eddie had everything to lose and David nothing, so he would have been very aggressive in trying to take the lead."

Schumacher then set about slowing Hakkinen down so that Irvine was far enough ahead to come out in the lead after they had all made their first pitstops.

The Finn was not bothered by Ferrari's tactics. "In their position, we would probably do the same," he said, in direct contradiction of Dennis' claims.

However, he was not best pleased with Schumacher's driving and waved his arm in the air a couple of times during the race to indicate the level of his displeasure.

"I was pissed off," Hakkinen said. "It was frustrating. It was the hardest race I have ever done.

"Michael was not consistent in the fast corners. I always had to be careful in case he was going to brake there or in surprising places.

"I was pushing him very hard, but passing him was always risky. He was sometimes quick and sometimes slow, and accelerating in funny places. I had to be careful not to run into him."

Schumacher explained his actions by saying the Coulthard incident had damaged a front wing endplate.

"After a while, I was missing a piece of wing. The fast corners were very difficult. I also had to worry about my tyres because we were going long [on a one-stop strategy] and they were not very grippy at the end of each stint."

Ferrari's view was that he was doing his job and taking it easy in the fast corners because he could not be overtaken there, and because that is where the tyres and downforce are most under load.

The wing may have slowed him a bit, but not much. On laps 25 and 26, building a gap for his own fuel stop, he set times faster than anyone else would do all weekend.

When Hakkinen came in on lap 27, just one short of half-distance, many thought he must be on a one-stop strategy, but the duration of his visit gave it away. Ferrari then knew he would have to pit again.

McLaren was criticised for its decision. Why, some asked, did the team not put Hakkinen on a one-stopper? Then it would have had a chance of surprising Ferrari and being ahead of Irvine when he came out from his own second visit, even if Schumacher would still have beaten them.

"Sometimes it's useful to change," Hakkinen said, "but we were stuck."

Dennis added: "There wouldn't have been any point, because Michael would have slowed him again. It was an option and we looked at it, but when we did the mathematics, no way."

The extra two seconds for the fuel needed to get Hakkinen to the end would have put the Finn behind Stewart's Johnny Herbert, driving an unobtrusively excellent race on a one-stop strategy himself. Getting by him on harder tyres and a full fuel load would not have been easy.

As it was, Hakkinen dropped behind Herbert anyway after his second stop, on lap 47, but by then any chance of victory was gone.

Those harder tyres were the source of the other criticism levelled at McLaren. The team should, the argument went, have put Hakkinen on the same super-soft rubber as everyone else. That way, he might have qualified higher than fourth, probably on the front row, and given Ferrari more trouble.

It might have worked - the team's engine designer, Mario Ilien, thought so. The problem was that Hakkinen could not get a balance on the softest tyre, so the decision was effectively made. Mercedes sports boss Norbert Haug may have been right when he said the harder tyre was not a factor, even if Ferrari's choice proved controversial after the race.

Following his stop, it looked as though Hakkinen might be stuck down in fourth place. He trailed Herbert closely, pushing him hard for six laps, and then, with one and a half to go, the Briton made a mistake in Turn 9. "He went wide," Hakkinen said, "and after that he lost his momentum."

With Herbert lacking grip, the Finn slipped by coming up to the start of the penultimate lap, but it did not detract from a great drive by the Stewart driver. He was on top of team-mate Rubens Barrichello all weekend, and his one-stop strategy was the better one.

Barrichello, in fact, had to work hard to fight off a charging Heinz-Harald Frentzen's Jordan in the closing laps. "It was hard work out there," said the Brazilian. "I'm absolutely exhausted."

If he thinks that was bad, he will get a rude shock next year at Ferrari. He believes he'll be allowed to beat Schumacher, but he'll have to catch him first. On the evidence, there's not much chance of anyone in the same car doing that.

"Sometimes," Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn said, "being away from the sport for a few months helps; it freshens you up. Michael has come back with a huge determination. He's determined and committed anyway, but he's come back with almost a fresh lease of life."

The man is awesome.

What happened next

Both Ferraris were disqualified from the Malaysian GP initially because their bargeboards were deemed to be illegal, but under a week later the team won an appeal on the grounds that the dimensions were within the 5mm tolerance allowed by the regulations and amid questions over the accuracy of the officials' measurements at Sepang.

That put Hakkinen on the back foot heading into the Suzuka finale, four points behind Irvine.

But Irvine was off the pace all weekend, qualifying only fifth - 1.5s off poleman Schumacher.

Hakkinen jumped Schumacher at the start and went on to dominate, with Irvine's distant third meaning he lost the title by two points.

After Ferrari's three years of near-misses, Schumacher finally ended its title drought in 2000 by winning another close championship fight with Hakkinen - and then went on to dominate the next half-decade.

Suzuka was Irvine's final race at Ferrari before moving to the Jaguar team created out of Stewart, which proved to be a generally unrewarding experience.