1996 SPANISH GP

BARCELONA FERRARI F310

5

Before the days when a hint of rain meant a grand prix had to start behind the safety car, Schumacher hardly made the getaway of a man about to take a dominant victory in atrocious conditions.

“Even Pedro Diniz passed me,” he said afterwards, using the poor Brazilian as an example of how far down the order he had fallen from third due to clutch problems.

He ended lap one in sixth place, five places up on Diniz, and after nine laps he was up to second. Three laps later he passed the leading Williams of Jacques Villeneuve to hit the front. From there, the contest was over. Schumacher sailed – almost literally – off into the distance on a dismal Barcelona afternoon, opening a lead of more than a minute before backing off in the closing stages nursing a broken exhaust.

“It was one of the great wet weather drives in history, in comparison with Ayrton Senna’s performances at Estoril in 1985 or Donington in 1993,” wrote Nigel Roebuck in Autosport’s race report. “So mesmeric, in fact, you forgot it was supposed to be a race.”

Benetton’s Jean Alesi, himself no slouch in wet conditions, beat Villeneuve for second place, but nobody was in the same race as Schumacher, whose fastest lap was 2.2s quicker than anybody else managed all afternoon on his way to the first of 72 wins for Ferrari.