The first time is always remembered with special precision, perhaps tinged with some brushstroke of idealism that did not exist. But it is not the case of the first victory of Michael Schumacher dressed in red Ferrari.
The German driver, 27 years old at the time, arrived at the 1996 Formula 1 Spanish GP with little hope, after a difficult relationship with Ferrari. Williams, with Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve , had dominated the previous six races that season with pleasure, with the exception of the Monaco GP, where a surprising Olivier Panis took victory.
In fact, some had already questioned the signing of the German by the Italian team, since it had barely achieved two victories in the previous five years, while Schumacher had accumulated 19 with Benetton in the last four seasons… and two championship titles of the world.
F1 approached the summer with the seventh round of the year and the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya as the stage. Although Schumacher’s teammate at Ferrari, Eddie Irvine , was fastest on Friday, the Irishman made it clear that it was pure mirage: “The circuit is not compatible with our car”.
In such a situation, one could only expect a new dominance of Williams with his FW18 and the excitement would be to know which of his two drivers would finish on top of the podium and who would accompany them on the third step.
Schumacher managed to qualify behind the Grove team, but almost a second behind Hill, who took his fourth pole position of the year. Already on Saturday afternoon, the rain (yes, on June 1 in Barcelona) began to fall with intensity. When the pilots went out to the Warm up on Sunday morning, the circuit was flooded and Heinz-Harald Frentzen was the worst unemployed, destroying his Sauber against the pit wall.
Although there was some discussion about going after the safety car, a standing start was eventually given the go-ahead and the drivers struggled to betray their V10 -powered cars (except for Minardi and Footwork, with V8s ).
Hill lost the lead to Villeneuve and Alesi also overtook the Briton. But it was worse for Schumacher, who fell to 7th place in the first meters. From behind, chaos broke out amid clouds of spray. Six of the 20 cars that took the start abandoned in the first two laps, including the Irvine Ferrari.
On lap 4, Hill spun off the track, leaving Berger and Schumacher free to battle it out for the final podium spot. The German began to like himself in the middle of the deluge that was falling in Montmeló and before the end of the 10th lap he already had Villeneuve within range, after getting rid of Berger and Alesi.
Two laps later, he also gave the Canadian a good account and began to put land in between: endorsing him 2.9 seconds at the end of said lap! The recital from then on was simply anthological.
Nobody saw Schumacher again that afternoon until the podium. In addition, he allowed himself the luxury of setting the fastest lap in the 14th lap of the race with a 1:45.517 that he surpassed by… 2.2 seconds the following!
“Exceptional” or “incredible” were some of the adjectives that Ferrari managers used that day to describe the show offered by Schumacher.
That season would be far from champion Hill, but the title of rainmaster (rain master) bore his last name. And neither he nor Ferrari imagined what was to come…
Remember the 91 victories of Michael Schumacher in F1
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