The 1998 Ferrari F1 car Schumacher 'loved like a baby' goes up for sale

F1

Ferrari F300 chassis No187, in which Michael Schumacher won the four 1998 F1 races he entered it with, is going up for auction

Michael Schumacher's Ferrari F300 chassis 3

The 1998 F300 187 with which Michael Schumacher took four wins is up for auction

RM Sotheby's

Author

James Elson

Few Formula 1 cars can be lay claim to being undefeated in the hands of a single driver, but one of Michael Schumacher’s 1998 Ferrari F300s, which is now going up for auction, has that accolade.

Chassis 187, which the seven-time world champion drove to four wins in the ’98 season, is heading under the hammer.

Another F300 – chassis 183 – sold for £1.4m in 2014, but it RM Sotheby’s, which is overseeing this car’s sale, predicts this 187 one could go for between for £5–6.5m

In a short video on the car, Ferrari team boss Jean Todt says the Schumacher “loved this car like a baby.”

After having one careful owner since it was sold on the Scuderia in 1999, the car remains untouched following its decommission from service at the end of 1998, remaining as it was after its final race at the Italian GP that year.

Chassis 187 first came into use at the ’98 Monaco GP, lined up as a spare car but then used by Ferrari No2 Eddie Irvine in the race as he finished third.

From then on it was handed to the Scuderia’s main man, as he began to get his championship fight against’s McLaren Mika Häkkinen back on track.

The car was fitted out with Ferrari’s biggest upgrade package of the season for the Canadian GP, with a new front wing, diffuser and rear bodywork. The modifications would pay dividend as Schumacher took a resounding win in Montreal, even overcoming a stop-go penalty for running Williams‘ Heinz-Harald Frentzen off track.

From the archive

The German would win again next time out in France and again in Silverstone. After infamously crashing a different F300 chassis into the back of David Coulthard at the rain-soaked Belgian GP, Schumacher would win again after reverting to the 187 for the Italian GP.

The German famously fought back at Monza after a poor start, eventually sweeping past Häkkinen to take an emphatic win in front of the Tifosi and maintain his perfect record in chassis 187.

Though Schumacher would ultimately lose out in the title fight to the Finn, the F300 would represent a key stepping stone on his way to an unprecedented five consecutive titles from ’00 to ’04.

“The car had a special meaning for him, so much emotion,” says Todt. “We knew we were starting to be protagonists, to be able to win races.

“Michael knew that the team were there. It was just a question of the making the necessary last steps.”

One of nine F300s produced by Ferrari, the car represents one the most visceral examples of the screaming V10 F1 era, a machine at one with its driver.

The Ferrari F300 will be sold at the Monterey auction on August 18-20 – the lot can be viewed here.

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