Formula 1 – Ferrari walkover

Michael Schumacher equalled Juan-Manuel Fangio's record of five championship and set a new mark for wins and points in a season, career points and number of career fastest laps.

Team-mate Rubens Barrichello was controversially told to move over and hand victory to Schumacher in Austria, but the Brazilian still scored four wins, including a farcical triumph in the US GP when Schumacher botched a planned photo finish.

In the face of such dominance there were slim pickings for the rest of the field and Williams and McLaren were left with just a win apiece for all their efforts. Ralf Schumacher's win in the second race of the year in Malaysia offered Williams up as potential champions, but despite Juan Pablo Montoya's seven pole positions they spent the second half of the season battling McLaren for 'best of the rest' honours.

The silver machines' sole win came courtesy of an inspired drive by David Coulthard at Monaco. They came close to halting Ferrari's run of wins when Kimi Raikkonen drove the race of his short F1 career at Magny-Cours, but a tiny error in the closing laps cruelly denied the Finn.

Renault showed flashes of speed and took fourth in the championship, but controversially dropped Jenson Button for test driver Fernando Alonso at the end of the year. Sauber were fast at the start of the season but dropped back as the it went on, while Jordan snatched sixth in the standings following Takuma Sato's great sixth place in Suzuka.

The Jaguar R3 was a dog of a car but was improved significantly towards the end of the season, and Eddie Irvine took a surprise podium at Monza. It was a poor season for BAR, who mustered just seven points.

Minardi started the season with an amazing fifth place in Australia, but it was the minows only points of the year. Toyota took two sixth places early on but slipped back as the season wore on, while the world economic downturn accounted for Arrows before the year was out.