Ferrari and Schumacher: 2000, the long-awaited victory
At the dawn of the 2000 season, Ferrari was coming from a 21-year drought in the drivers’ world championship – dating back to Jody Scheckter’s last success. It seemed like a real curse, with a series of titles missed in succession for various reasons between 1996 and 1999, which had severely tested the tenure of both team principal Jean Todt and Michael Schumacher. They were very intense years, with very strong opponents, such as Williams and McLaren.
But 2000 was a triumph, a triumph that took the pressure off Ferrari, which recorded the drivers’-constructors’ double for five consecutive years. Different times.
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Todt’s account: 2000, a “now or never” year
In this regard, the account of that difficult period preceding the victories given by Jean Todt on the High Performance podcast is very interesting: “In 1997 we lost at the last race. In 1998 similarly, when there was the accident at Spa in the rain while lapping Coulthard. In 1999 there was the mechanics’ error and Michael’s accident and then Irvine who lost to Hakkinen. That year, however, there was the constructors’ world championship.”
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For the following year there was the feeling that they would find themselves at a point of no return, Todt explained: “We knew that 2000 would be the last year. If we hadn’t won in 2000, the team would have exploded. And we won. That success was not a given, because I remember that halfway through the season during a meeting I said: ‘We have to win the last four races, otherwise the team is finished’. And we won, and then it was a dream period.”
