1995 EUROPEAN GP

NURBURGRING BENETTON B195

2

‘AWESOME’ was the word used on the Autosport front cover to describe Schumacher’s performance at the Nurburgring, where he recovered from being

43s behind Jean Alesi’s Ferrari to taking the lead just over two laps from the finish.

Alesi inherited the lead thanks to an inspired decision to start the race on slicks despite the track still being damp. So when Schumacher and Williams drivers David Coulthard and Damon Hill pitted, the Ferrari was in the clear out front.

But Schumacher was in determined mood, taking advantage of a lighter fuel load to cut as much as two seconds per lap from Alesi’s lead. When he caught the French-sicilian inside the final 20 laps, Schumacher was shocked to learn that he still had another pitstop to make while Alesi was going to the end. “We’d been on a two-stop strategy, and

I’d made two stops,” he said after the race. “But the first of those had really been to change from wets to slicks, and they didn’t put much fuel in. On the second stop it was the same. I didn’t realise this at the time, so when they told me I needed to come in again I was pretty upset, thinking for sure I would now lose the race.”

Schumacher emerged from his surprise final stop 24 seconds behind with 16 laps remaining, and when he saw that championship rival Hill – who he had collided with yet again earlier in the race – had crashed out, he decided he had nothing to lose with the world championship effectively assured.

He reeled Alesi in again and, after some aggressive defensive driving from the race leader, Schumacher finally muscled his way into the lead at the end of lap 65 of 67 with a daring pass around the outside into the chicane.

“To watch Schumacher in action now was to witness a great racing driver at his absolute best,” wrote Nigel Roebuck in his race report.

As Schumacher celebrated what was clearly the best drive of his career up to that point, even Hill stood trackside on the slowing down lap to applaud a phenomenal performance.