By Steve Schwarz Dec 28, 2006, 19:36 GMT
Philadelphia, PA - The 2006 Formula One season was dominated by two stories: a great title battle between Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher and the retirement of the latter.
The two competitors won 14 of the 18 events, including 11 of the first 12, to turn what could have been a multi-car challenge into a head-to-head fight down the stretch.
In the end it was Alonso that survived to collect his second consecutive World Championship.
The Spaniard began the season with a win at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. He would go on and win five of eight races, which included a stretch of four straight wins to build a lead of 25 points over Schumacher.
But the seven-time champion showed he was anything but done by winning five of seven races and after his Chinese GP win the championship was deadlocked at 116 points each.
Schumacher, rebounding from a poor 2005 season, won a total of seven times in 2006 including the Italian Grand Prix where he announced that he would retire from racing at the end of the current season.
At the penultimate event in Japan, Alonso won the race and tallied 10 points, while Schumacher's 20th-place finish sent him home scoreless for the weekend.
Schumacher needed to win the season finale in Brazil just to have a remote shot at his eighth Formula One championship, but a punctured tire early on put him in a hole. He rallied back to finish fourth, but Alonso's second-place finish was a championship clincher.
It was the second title for the Renault/Alonso team, but it was also the end of the successful combination as Alonso heads to McLaren in 2007 and his spot at Renault will be taken by rookie Heikki Kovalainen.
Schumacher's seat at Ferrari will be given to Kimi Raikkonen, who surely will have more pressure on him than anyone in all of sports.
After all, Raikkonen will be replacing the greatest driver in F1 history.
Schumacher won 91 Formula One races, 68 poles and seven championships over a career that spanned 16 years. He also holds records for: most consecutive championship titles: five, most consecutive race wins: seven in 2004, most race wins at the same GP: eight at the French Grand Prix, most second-place finishes: 43, most podium finishes: 154, most consecutive podium finishes: 19 (from the 2001 United States Grand Prix until the 2002 Japanese Grand Prix), most points finishes: 190, most laps leading: 4741, most championship points: 1,369, most consecutive race finished without retirement: 24 (from the 2001 Hungarian Grand Prix, until the 2003 Malaysian Grand Prix), most race wins in a season: 13, most podium finishes in a season: 17 (out of 17 races in 1995) and many, many others.
'For us drivers, not only for me, we are happy to race with Michael the last couple of years,' Alonso said after the Brazilian GP. 'He has been a great champion.'
Schumacher was a champion and one of the world's highest paid athletes because of his single-minded dedication and ruthless determination to succeed. Supremely fit, he was also mentally tough.
It should be noted that Schumacher was aided by the best car and subservient teammates throughout his years at Ferrari. But he showed that the man behind the wheel can still make the difference despite advancing technology that tried to reduce drivers to an afterthought.
A sign in the stands at Brazil said it all - 'Michael you are the champion, today and forever.'
© 2006 The Sports Network
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