2004 FRENCH GP
MAGNYCOURS FERRARI F2004
9
It’s hard to pick out the standout performances from the most-dominant years of the Schumacher/ferrari partnership, mainly because they made their competition look average on an almost weekly basis.
But one race that stood out from Schumacher’s record-breaking 2004 season was the French GP, where the Ferrari pitwall outfoxed Renault at its home race with a four-stop strategy.
Renault’s starts were superb during this era of F1, so nobody was surprised to see Fernando Alonso convert pole position into an early lead. The question was how could Ferrari find a way to get Schumacher ahead to exploit the fact that he had the faster car in race trim.
Ferrari hatched a plan on raceday to take advantage of the short Magny-cours pitlane, which meant the time lost making a pitstop was not as big as it would be at most circuits – just 11 seconds plus the time the car was stopped.
The strategy allowed Schumacher to jump Alonso by getting out of sync with the Renault to find clear track, and it also forced Renault into short-fuelling in the pits when it thought
Ferrari had done the same thing.
Alonso paid the price for that by being heavy in his final stint, unable to respond to a string of classic qualifying laps from Schumacher when it counted that allowed the Ferrari to build a gap big enough to retain the lead despite making an extra pitstop.
A Ross Brawn masterstroke? Not this time.
Ferrari strategist Luca Baldisserri cooked this one up, and Schumacher delivered in fine style.