Ferrari, 30 years ago Schumacher’s dance in the rain
It is June 2, 1996, and while the Italian Republic celebrates its 50 years, in Catalonia winter gives one last and belated lash with low temperatures and a thunderstorm on the Montmeló circuit. The Spanish GP is therefore run on a track soaked by a deluge that has rarely appeared in a race weekend, at least in recent decades. Certainly, today no one would even remotely think of racing in those conditions. The real cyclone, however, is called Michael Schumacher.
Coming off two world titles with Benetton, expectations on the German, at the start of his Ferrari adventure, are very high. The F310 is a slow and unreliable car, and only the Kaiser manages to push it to the limit. Not always with the hoped-for results: for example, two weeks earlier, after taking pole at Monte Carlo, Schumacher crashed on the first lap of the craziest GP ever. So the one arriving in Catalonia is an angry driver, fueled by murmurs about the mistake in Monaco. And at Montmeló he makes history, with his first win in Ferrari.
And what a victory…
After securing third position on the grid under a scorching sun – but 1″ behind Damon Hill’s pole – the rain comes to Schumacher’s aid, giving him the chance to showcase his boundless talent in the wet.
Read more Leapmotor, four-digit growth in Italy in May
The track is a swimming pool and the Kaiser swims 4″ faster than the others: he can even afford a slow start, which puts him in P6 on the first lap, but already on the eighth lap he is close behind Jacques Villeneuve and Jean Alesi, while Hill collects off-track excursions in series: on the third strike, he retires. On the next lap – the 12th – Schumacher makes the decisive attack on Villeneuve, setting up a podium appointment: 45 seconds to Alesi, 48 to the Canadian, in a car full of aches and problems, the penultimate by John Barnard and the last in the low-nose version.
