In Michael Schumacher’s initial years with Scuderia Ferrari, the car itself still required a lot of development to be able to challenge rivals such as Williams and McLaren. Seeking to address these deficiencies, in 1997, Ferrari lured designer Rory Byrne out of retirement to replace the departed John Barnard. Though Byrne initially worked to develop Barnard’s 1996 F310 into the F310B for the 1997 season, rule changes following the championship’s conclusion mandated an all-new car for 1998.
Today Michael Schumacher’s 1998 race-winning Ferrari F300 made two people very happy at the end of the day at RM-Sotheby’s prestigious auction at Monterey, the seller of the illustrious car and its lucky new owner. Ferrari’s F300 car, more precisely chassis #187 created by a team of engineers under the leadership of Rory Byrne and former Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn – enjoys an undefeated track record, as it was driven to four victories by seven-time Formula One World Champion Michael Schumacher.
In designing the F300, Rory Byrne had to contend with significant rule changes which greatly impacted the prevailing aerodynamic solutions for Formula One car design. Chief amongst these was the shortening of the car’s maximum width by nearly seven inches, the exclusion of racing slicks in favor of grooved tires, and a host of new rules regulating the construction and size of brake systems.
The car was entered in four F1 Grands Prix during the 1998 season – in Canada, France, Great Britain and Italy – and took the win in all four events with the legendary German driver behind the wheel.
That great statistic likely helped produce the highest bid which came in at $6,220,000! The future owner of the Ferrari F300 will be offered an exclusive visit of the ICM Paris Brain Institute and the Richard Mille Swiss watchmaking facilities in Les Breuleux, Switzerland
However, it wasn’t the highest price ever paid for a modern Formula 1 car at an auction: the overall record held by another former Michael Schumacher challenger, the 2001 Ferrari F1 car from the 2001 championship, which was sold in 2021 for an amazing $7,504,000!
Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection from Puma! Enter the online Puma Store and shop securely! And get your F1 tickets for every race with VIP hospitality and unparalleled insider access. Click here for the best offers to support Charles and Carlos from the track!
At the same time, the highlight of Saturday’s RM-Sotheby’s auction at Monterey was the sale of one of the most significant purpose-built Ferrari “big block” sports-racing prototypes from the 1950s: The 1955 Ferrari 410 Sport Spider, which as raced in period by, among others, Phil Hill, Carroll Shelby, Eugenio Castellotti, Masten Gregory, Richie Ginther and Jo Bonnie – went under the hammer for an eye-watering $22,005,000!
One of the car’s precious originalities, in addition to its Sergio Scaglietto designed coachwork, is its original fuel tank on which are inscribed a few words by Shelby:
“Mr. Ferrari told me that this was the best Ferrari he ever built”.
Leave a Reply