After winning the sixth of his seven world championships, Michael Schumacher faced an unusual challenge on December 11, 2003. That day, the German pilot did not have an appointment on a circuit but at an air base, that of Grosseto , in Italy. The Ferrari F2003-GA with which he had achieved six victories that same year was waiting for him to compete against a unique opponent.
In front of Schumacher there was no Formula 1 driver, but Maurizio Cheli at the controls of his Eurofighter Typhoon , a fighter capable of reaching a speed of 2,445 km/h in the air. To make the dispute a little fairer, obviously they were going to measure each other on the track, without taking flight. But unfortunately the wet asphalt after a rainy day made the day ugly.
The confrontation was played over three rounds with three different distances. The first, 600 meters, allowed Schumacher to win by just two tenths of a second. But over 900 meters and over 1,200 meters, the Ferrari’s top speed was not enough and the Eurofighter Typhoon beat it first by two tenths and by 2.5 seconds over the longest distance.
“The best race was the first!” Schumacher said at the end of that special day. “If it hadn’t rained we would have had more grip, but in any case the result wasn’t important, it was great to see the plane take off next to where I was.”
The Ferrari F2003-GA carried a Ferrari 052 V10 engine and Bridgestone tires.
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