A Legends Last Lap

Whatever happens in the final two Grands Prix of 2006, Michael Schumacher is sure to look back on his farewell season as one of the most satisfying of his career.

With his stunning victory in China on Sunday, the Ferrari driver took the world championship lead for the first time this year and now looks more likely than his rival Fernando Alonso to end the season on top.

The two men head into Japan next weekend and Brazil two weeks after that equal on points, setting up one of the most exciting climaxes in Formula One history.

But what makes the closing stages of this season such an enticing prospect is the sheer quality of the drivers involved.

Schumacher’s standing as an all-time great is well-established, and over the last few seasons Alonso has proven himself as his heir apparent.

The Spanish Renault driver will take over in 2007 Schumacher’s position as the best racing driver in the world – indeed, some would say he already holds it.

As former Ferrari driver Gerhard Berger puts it, there is “hardly anything between them”.

Schumacher may – it is hard to know – be ever so slightly faster. Alonso appears to lack his propensity for unsportsmanlike behaviour, and is arguably less prone to mistakes under pressure. Both display the incredible commitment and consistency that allows them to operate on a level beyond any of their rivals.

Sunday’s race in China was just the latest example of the genius of both men.It will surely go down as one of the greatest performances of Schumacher’s career.

To win in those conditions, on Bridgestone tyres apparently inferior to Renault’s Michelins, puts his drive right up there among the many other examples in his career of overcoming seemingly overwhelming odds, such as in Canada in 2003.But Alonso was equally superb.

He annihilated team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella – one of F1’s best exponents of wet-weather driving – in the first stint in equal equipment, and his pace in the final part of the race was nothing short of breathtaking – more than second a lap faster than any other driver for the best part of 20 laps.

The point is that this is a no-holds-barred contest between two of history’s greatest racing drivers, and as such it is exactly what F1 fans were robbed of when Ayrton Senna was killed at the start of 1994.It is also what Schumacher has lacked throughout most of his career.

One of the reasons so many observers are reluctant to class him as the greatest of all time, despite his overwhelming statistical superiority, is the relative paucity of opposition he has faced.Only in his title battles with Mika Hakkinen in 1998 and 2000 had Schumacher faced a driver arguably as fast as him, and never – until now – anyone as complete.

But now, finally, there is Alonso, and their struggle is more than living up to all expectations.The pity of it in many ways is that one of them has to be the loser, but then sportsmen as great as these can never really be that.

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