Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Ferrari, Formula 1, Michael Schumacher, McLaren, FIA
Ryan Smart
Michael Schumacher once won a Formula 1 race from the pit lane in one of the most controversial incidents in the sport's history.
During the 1998 season, the German was locked in a Drivers' Championship battle with McLaren and Mika Hakkinen.
Schumacher, who was attempting to win his first title with Ferrari, was 12 points behind his championship rival heading into the British Grand Prix.
Advert
The pair lined up on the front row of the grid at Silverstone, with Hakkinen almost half a second quicker in qualifying.
Part of the Grand Prix was ran in wet conditions, with Hakkinen stretching out a commanding lead over Schumacher heading into the final third of the race.
The Finnish driver would spin into the gravel and lose time, but managed to start his car again despite damage.
A safety car was then deployed due to the increasingly dangerous conditions, and Schumacher passed Hakkinen for the lead shortly after the restart.
Advert
Then came the controversy.
Schumacher was given a 10-second time penalty for overtaking another car under the safety car period, which is prohibited under FIA rules.
However, back in 1998, procedures were nowhere near as digitally advanced as today, with the stewards delivering a hand-written note to Ferrari detailing the penalty.
Advert
There were two major issues, with Ferrari claiming that they didn't know whether the penalty was a 10-second penalty - which would have been added to Schumacher's time at the end of the race - or a 10-second stop-and-go sanction.
The German had built up such a significant lead that a time penalty would not have changed the result, but a stop-and-go penalty would force him to pit and lose the lead - in theory.
The key issue was that, when the penalty notice was delivered to Ferrari, there were only two laps of the race remaining.
Technical director Ross Brawn decided that Schumacher would pit on the final lap of the race to serve a stop-and-go penalty, as a precaution.
Advert
The German therefore drove into his pit box, and was still serving his penalty as Mika Hakkinen crossed the start-finish line.
However, Schumacher had already taken the chequered flag - because his pit box was positioned after the finish line.
After chaotic scenes in the days and weeks that followed the incident, Schumacher was ultimately allowed to keep his race victory.
Advert
The FIA's International Court of Appeal clarified that he had received a 10-second stop-and-go penalty, which would have caused him to finish in second place, or even in third behind team-mate Eddie Irvine.
But they also concluded that the stewards had committed two key errors, with the main error being that they had exceeded the allowed time limit for notifying Ferrari about the penalty.
McLaren claimed Schumacher's win was 'illegal' but their protest against the result proved unsuccessful.
In an extraordinary development, all three stewards that were on the panel at Silverstone handed in their licences to the FIA.
The FIA then agreed to adopt a new system whereby the race director would be responsible for informing teams about penalty, as well as displaying steward decisions on the timing monitors.
That system has been developed as technology has improved over the years, but is fundamentally the same rule, with major decisions always appearing on the timing screens as well as in other graphical forms.
Schumacher would go on to lose the 1998 Drivers' Championship to Hakkinen, having been forced to retire in two of the last three races.
The pair were involved in a tight tussle for the championship again in 1999 but, when F1 returned to Silverstone, Schumacher suffered a broken leg after a brake failure on lap one.
Although the German returned to action before the end of the season, he was out of championship contention and instead played a supporting role in team-mate Irvine's unsuccessful attempt to topple Hakkinen.