Michael Schumacher victory 2000 Formula One World Drivers' Championship
2000–2004: World Championship years
Schumacher won his third World Drivers' Championship in 2000, and his first with Ferrari, after a year-long battle with Häkkinen. Schumacher won the first three races of the season and five of the first eight. Midway through the year, Schumacher's chances suffered with three consecutive non-finishes, allowing Häkkinen to close the gap in the standings. Häkkinen then took another two victories, before Schumacher won at the Italian Grand Prix. At the post-race press conference, after equalling the number of wins (41) won by his idol Senna, Schumacher broke into tears. The championship fight would come down to the penultimate race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix. Starting from pole position, Schumacher lost the lead to Häkkinen at the start. After his second pit-stop, however, Schumacher came out ahead of Häkkinen and went on to win the race and the Drivers' Championship. Although Schumacher won more than twice as many Grands Prix as Häkkinen, BBC Sport journalist Andrew Benson stated that "the challenge from Mika Hakkinen and McLaren-Mercedes was far stronger than the raw statistics suggest" and that the Adrian Newey-designed McLaren was "the fastest car in F1 for the third straight year". Benson also hailed Schumacher as "unquestionably the greatest driver of his era".In 2001, Schumacher took his fourth Drivers' title. Four other drivers won races, but none sustained a season-long challenge for the championship. Schumacher scored a record-tying nine wins and clinched the World Championship with four races yet to run. He finished the championship with 123 points, 58 ahead of runner-up Coulthard. Season highlights included the Canadian Grand Prix, where Schumacher finished second to his brother Ralf, thus scoring the first-ever 1–2 finish by brothers in Formula One; and the Belgian Grand Prix, in which Schumacher scored his 52nd career win, breaking Alain Prost's record for most career wins.In 2002, Schumacher retained his Drivers' Championship. There was some controversy, however, at the Austrian Grand Prix. His teammate, Rubens Barrichello, was leading, but in the final metres of the race, under team orders, slowed down to allow Schumacher to win the race. Although the switching of positions did not break any actual sporting or technical regulation, it angered fans and it was claimed that the team's actions showed a lack of sportsmanship and respect to the spectators. Many argued that Schumacher did not need to be "given" wins in only the sixth race of the season, particularly given that he had already won four of the previous five Grands Prix, and that Barrichello had dominated the race weekend up to that point. At the podium ceremony, Schumacher pushed Barrichello onto the top step, and for this disturbance, the Ferrari team incurred a US$1 million fine. At the United States Grand Prix later that year, Schumacher returned the favour by giving Barrichello the win by the second-closest margin in Formula One history of 0.011 seconds on the finishing line. Schumacher's explanation varied between it being him "returning the favour" for Austria, or trying to engineer a formation finish—a feat derided as near-impossible in a sport where timings are taken to within a thousandth of a second. After the end of the season, the FIA banned "team orders which interfere with the race result", but the ban was lifted for the 2011 season because the ruling was difficult to enforce. In winning the Drivers' Championship he equalled the record set by Juan Manuel Fangio of five World Championships. Ferrari won 15 out of 17 races, and Schumacher won the title with six races remaining in the season, which is still the earliest point in the season for a driver to be crowned World Champion. Schumacher broke his own record, shared with Nigel Mansell, of nine race wins in a season, by winning 11 times and finishing every race on the podium. He finished with 144 points, a record-breaking 67 points ahead of the runner-up, his teammate Barrichello. This pair finished nine of the 17 races in the first two places.
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