When Michael Schumacher broke his leg in a nasty crash at the 1999 British Grand Prix, few expected to see him racing again that season. In the end, not only did he return, he did so at the very top of his game, much to team mate Eddie Irvine’s delight…
0.947 seconds. On the face of it that may seem like a small amount of time, but in the context of a Grand Prix qualifying session it’s a relative lifetime. It’s also the margin by which Michael Schumacher eclipsed Ferrari team mate Eddie Irvine – his closest challenger – to clinch pole position at the inaugural Malaysian Grand Prix in October 1999.
That Schumacher was so far in front of Irvine, let alone the rest of the field, was nothing short of remarkable: prior to the weekend he hadn’t driven an F1 car in anger since fracturing his leg in a brake failure-induced first lap crash at Silverstone some three months earlier. What’s more, when he had driven, in a private test at Mugello two weeks prior to the Malaysia round, he seemed reluctant to return to the cockpit, saying that his physical condition prevented him from running at his usual pace.
And yet there he was in hot and sticky Sepang, thrust back into action in the thick of a furious title fight between Irvine and McLaren’s Mika Hakkinen and comfortably showing the rest of the field the best way around the brand-new, state-of-the-art circuit. It was as if he’d never been away.
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