Michael Schumacher: Ferrari launches tribute exhibition to F1 legend
The exhibition is intended both as a celebration and mark of gratitude to the most successful Prancing Horse driver ever, says Sean O’Grady
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Your support makes all the difference.A special tribute to the racing driver Michael Schumacher – arguably the most successful in the history of the sport – has been organised by the Ferrari Museum in the corporate HQ at Maranello, Italy.
The event marks his 50th birthday. It is something of a bittersweet experience, as Schumacher has been in poor health since 2013, when he suffered a traumatic brain injury during a skiing accident. His family and representatives say his heath is a private matter.
The exhibition will run “for a few months”, according to the company.
Ferrari say that the exhibition is “intended both as a celebration and a mark of gratitude to the most successful Prancing Horse driver ever”.
The centre piece is the Hall of Victories, which displays some of the most important Ferrari single-seaters driven in his 11 years with the teams, or scuderia.
They range from the F310 of 1996, with which Schumacher won three grands prix in his first season with the Prancing Horse, to the F399, the car that gave him the constructors’ title in 1999 to set Formula 1’s oldest team off on an exceptional run of victories.
There is also the F1-2000 of the legendary ‘Alba Rossa’ (‘Red Dawn’), when, at Suzuka, Schumacher secured Ferrari its first world title since Jody Scheckter 21 years before.
Also on show are the recordbreaking F2002 and F2004, and the 248 F1 of 2006, in which he triumphed at the Chinese grand prix for his 72nd and final victory with Ferrari.
Schumacher retains a special place in Ferrari’s affections and its history, and his career has been marked, so to speak, by a record number of records. In Schumacher’s extraordinary recordbreaking F1 career he won an as yet unequalled seven world titles, 91 victories and 155 podiums.
Between 1996 and 2006 the German champion won five consecutive drivers’ titles, from 2000 to 2004, and made a major contribution to the Ferrari team’s haul of six manufacturers’ titles over those glory years.
The museum’s rooms will enable people to recall the memorable seasons that delighted ferraristi, and indeed motor sport fans everywhere, with an unprecedented collection of cars and other memorabilia – added to an already breathtakingly comprehensive collection of fine machinery.
The exhibition will also show Schumacher’s crucial contribution to the development of extraordinary road-going GT cars in his years at Maranello, as a driver and later as a consultant – the 2008 California race being one example.
The ‘Michael 50’ exhibition is in collaboration with the Keep Fighting Foundation. It will run alongside ‘Driven by Enzo’ and ‘Passion and Legend’, which are already open at the Maranello Museum.
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