Michael Schumacher
Legacy

Schumacher's career spanned three decades, or twenty-three years, and left a lasting impact on the sport, Formula One in particular but also motorsport as a whole, and his influence extended beyond his own racing career. By the time of his first retirement in 2006 and his final retirement in 2012, Schumacher was widely considered among the greatest Formula One drivers, a trend that continued into the 2020s. Several commentators and drivers, including among others multi-time World Champions Niki Lauda and Sebastian Vettel, former rival David Coulthard, former Formula One driver Giancarlo Fisichella, and Mercedes team bosses Ross Brawn and Toto Wolff, have at times described him as the greatest of his era and the greatest of all time. Schumacher was the sport's most dominant force in the 2000s, being described as statistically the most successful driver in Formula One history and the most complete Formula One driver ever. By 2004, Schumacher came to held most major Formula One records, and by 2006 his name was inscribed in almost all of Formula One's record books, including for most World Championships (7), most wins (91), most podiums (155), most pole positions (68), and most fastest laps (77), the latter a record he still holds. Although several of his records were later equalled or beaten, such as the most wins in a season at 13 (a record he first broke in 1995 and then equalled in 2000 and 2001, and further improved in 2002 and 2004), by multiple-time World Champions like Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, and Max Verstappen, others remain his, such as his 100 percent podium finish in 2002 (17), which included eleven wins, five second places, and one third place.

As of 2006, Schumacher was the driver to have made the most starts with the same constructor (Ferrari, 180) and engine manufacturer (Ferrari, 180). He and Rubens Barrichello were the two drivers who have made the most starts as teammate (102, 2000–2005) and most 1–2 finishes (24 in the same period). In 2004, Schumacher tied Nigel Mansell for the record of most wins at the start of a season, and he tied Senna for most pole positions at the same circuit (eight, with Schumacher at Suzuka and Senna at Imola). At 15 seasons, he holds the record for most consecutive seasons of winning at least one race (shared with Hamilton), and he holds the record for most wins at the same venue (eight, at the Magny-Cours circuit in France) and also the record for the most wins in the same Grand Prix (eight, France). At the 2003 Italian Grand Prix, he set the record for the race win at the fastest ever average speed of 247.586 kph (153.843 mph). By 2006, he had spent a record 5,108 of his racing laps in the lead, and led 141 races. He also made the most starts from the front row (115), scored the most points (1,369) before the point-system was overhauled in 2010, finished the most races in the points consecutively (24, from 2001 to 2003), and held the record for most consecutive fastest laps at the same circuit (7). In 2002, he won the World Championship with six rounds to spare, which was earlier in the year than anyone before him (21 July). Objective mathematical models, such as Eichenberger and Stadelmann (2009, 3rd), original F1metrics (2014, 4th), Bell et al. (2015, 3rd), FiveThirtyEight (2018, 2nd), and updated F1metrics (2019, 1st), put Schumacher consistenly among the top 10 and top 5 greatest Formula One drivers ever.

Schumacher, who dominated the sport in the 1990s and early 2000s becoming in 1995 the youngest back-to-back World Champion at the time, was noted for his ability in the rain, winning many of the wet races he took part in, most notability Spain in 1996, and for his race pace, being able to set consecutive qualifying fastest laps; due to refuelling, he missed out several pole positions, having set his race strategy through more fuel on board (from his debut in 1991 through to the end of 2002 before the introduction of race-fuel qualifying from 2003 onwards, Schumacher was only outqualified 13 times in 178 race entries), and won 23 percent more than his pole positions. He also respectively won 51 and 24 times without starting first or from the front row, and had 48 wins with fastest lap, all three being more than any other driver, and converted 40 of his pole positions to wins at 58 percent, a record number that was later beaten by Hamilton. By the time he first retired in 2006, with 91 wins in 248 starts out of 250 entries (only behind Riccardo Patrese), Schumacher had a win ratio of 36 percent of starts, ahead of Formula One legends Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, both of them at 25 percent of starts. He also had 27 percent of pole positions, 30 percent of fastest laps, and the most victories from pole with fastest lap at 22. He also could have won even more races had he went to the dominant teams of the 1990s (Williams and McLaren) and not joined Ferrari in 1996, a view echoed by his former teammate Eddie Irvine, and could have become the first driver to win 100 races were it not for some situations that went beyond his control, such as reliability issues causing him to finish lower than first in 1994, one revoked win in 1994, two unfortunate collisions with Coulthard and Juan Pablo Montoya in 1998 and 2004, the two wins he gave to Irvine and Barrichello in 1999 and 2002, and retirements in 1994, 2006, and 2012.

Schumacher was noted for beating all his teammates during his Formula One career, except for his debuting not-fully season against three-time World Champion Nelson Piquet, once for 1999 World Championship runner-up Eddie Irvine due to missing six races after a leg injury, and future 2016 World Champion Nico Rosberg when he was in his 40s. Schumacher was also noted for outperforming his cars and for his ability to operate at his peak on every lap, having won significant more races than he had either pole positions or fastest laps. Apart from dominating the 1995, 2001, 2002, and 2004 World Championships (with 2002 and 2004 being the sole years where he drove the clear-cut fastest car as Barrichello was the runner-up both years), he won the competitive 2003 World Championship and either won (three times) or narrowly missed (two times) World Championships despite arguably driving an inferior car (1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, and 2000), and arguably would have won in 1999 had it been for the injury, as the performance gap from McLaren was far smaller than in 1998. Since the 1994 death of Senna, Schumacher was widely regarded as the fastest driver in Formula One and the most dominant driver of his era. During his long career, Schumacher was also involved in several controversies, most notability the 1994 and 1997 World Championship seasons finale and the 2006 Monaco qualifying. These episodes have been seen as a result of Schumacher's will-to-win mentality. In 2020, Martin Brundle commented: "The make-up of a champion is one of such inner self-belief that occasionally it shows up as flaws. The majority of the sporting greats I've met drive themselves forwards because they are always dissatisfied. But look at what Michael achieved, the speed at which he achieved it, and what he accomplished at two different teams. It's so hard to get to F1, to stay in it, to score podiums, and win races. And that guy won 91 of them, some of them in a class of one."
oulipo:avoid_letter[o]