The first races of that year 2002 already allowed us to guess that Michael Schumacher would reach his fifth Formula 1 world championship, although it remained to be known in which event and circuit the German would achieve it, who had just won his third and fourth crowns in 2000 and 2001.
Schumacher and Ferrari dominated the top category with an iron hand, and the usual thing that course for them was to achieve victory or at least a podium.
In a season of 17 races, the French test, the eleventh, was held in Magny-Cours and arrived with Schumacher widely escaped in the drivers’ world championship with 86 points, his teammate Rubens Barrichello being second with 32 and Juan Pablo Montoya, with the Williams, third with 31.
That would be the last year in which Formula 1 gave 10 points to the winner and 6 to the second (and so on, 4-3-2-1, until the sixth).
In qualifying on Saturday, Montoya took pole position by just 23 thousandths (0.023 seconds) over Schumacher. It was one of the Colombian’s seven pole positions in 2002, and although he could not even dream of reaching Schumacher in points and victories, he did match him in that record.
Already in the race, Michael managed to overtake Montoya after the first pit stop, and was on his way to victory when he received a drive-through for going over the pitlane white line, dropping him to third place.
The Williams’ performance slipped, and a young Kimi Raikkonen, then in his first season with McLaren, seemed on his way to his first F1 victory, although Schumacher kept an eye on him.
Everything would change five laps from the end, when the engine of Allan McNish ‘s Toyota broke and left oil in the braking hairpin, something that caught Raikkonen by surprise. The Finn lost the line and Schumacher took the opportunity to pass him, although they were close to touching when Kimi returned to the track.
Already leader, Schumacher asked his team if he had to let McLaren go through, and Ferrari told him no. The German has already set his sights on what would be his eighth win in 10 races held so far in 2002.
The difference with respect to the other victories was that that of France allowed Schumacher to be world champion for the fifth time, since Barrichello abandoned at the start and Montoya could not be more than fourth, remaining 62 points behind the Ferrari leader with 60 remaining (six runs) to be shared.
“‘Thank you’ is a very small word to say thank you for what the team does for me. I adore and at the same time admire each one of the members of the Scuderia for the work they do and their motivation”, said Michael as soon as he was crowned five-time champion.
“This weekend I didn’t think much about the title, but when I saw that Rubens was out and I knew what position Montoya was in, I did start to think about it.”
Schumacher acknowledged that he had a hard time in the last few laps, and said he had some concern: “I don’t think I would have been able to pass Kimi without the oil problem. He had a magnificent race. Passing him, I thought he had done it with yellow flags and I was worried, because it happened right after the incident.”
“When I was leading, it was the worst five laps of my life, because I realized that I had the world championship in my pocket again. I felt the pressure on my shoulders, an enormous pressure not to fail. Those laps seemed like an eternity.”
Schumacher managed to match Juan Manuel Fangio’s five world championships a few days before the 45th anniversary of the Argentine’s fifth title. Later the German would add two more crowns with Ferrari to raise his world championships to seven, something that seemed unattainable until Lewis Hamilton matched it in 2020. He had reached Fangio’s five championships in 2018 , and in 2021 he was unable to become the most successful solo player after the defeat against Max Verstappen. But he never won, nor will he win, a title in July.
See the photos of that historic race of Schumacher in Magny-Cours (entering the link or clicking on the image)
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