Rewind to: When Michael Schumacher won the 1998 British Grand Prix from the pits

Winning a Formula One race from the pit lane! That was how the 1998 F1 race in Silverstone, Great Britain panned out in the most bizarre circumstances. Mika Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher were the two major drivers involved in the incident. There were accusations of cheating. The Stewards who monitor the race were at fault. A hand-written note was not so legible. The repercussions stung F1. But, in the end, the winner was declared in the most bizarre circumstances.

The 1998 F1 season was shaping up to be an absolute thriller. Mika Hakkinen won the first two races in Australia and Brazil. Schumacher got off the mark with a win in Argentina. After Hakkinen’s teammate David Coulthard won in San Marino, Hakkinen responded with wins in Spain and Monaco. However, Schumacher staged a resurgence. He won the Canadian and French Grand Prix and was gunning for a hat-trick.

Heading into the race in Silverstone, Schumacher was six points behind Hakkinen. Things did not look good for Michael Schumacher as Hakkinen took the pole position. Schumacher was second while Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 champion was in third.

A very strange F1 race in Silverstone for Michael Schumacher

ON the day of the race, there was heavy rain. Although it stopped before the race, there were sections of the track which were dry and wet. Hakkinen started brilliantly and maintained a big lead. Schumacher was desperate to catch up but the gap increased. However, the conditions changed on lap 16. Heavy rain began to fall in Silverstone and that involved a change of strategy.

Hakkinen had built a lead of 49 seconds over Michael Schumacher. However, on lap 44, he went off the track, did a complete 360 degrees turn before continuing. The incident damaged the front wing of his car and cost him 10 seconds of his lead but following numerous other spins caused by the worsening conditions the safety car was deployed which slowed the cars down and removed Hakkinen’s advantage over Schumacher altogether.

The race restarted on lap 50. Schumacher passed Hakkinen after only two laps as the Finnish driver spun to make another mistake. The German quickly pulled away from his rival, who was now nursing his McLaren home. But, there would be drama towards the end of the race.

The note of confusion from the Stewards

However, on the 58^th lap, Schumacher was issued with a 10-second penalty for passing Alexander Wurz under the safety car on lap 43. Unsure whether the handwritten notification declared that Schumacher would see 10 seconds being added to his race time or had to serve a 10-second stop-and-go penalty, his team decided to call in him into the pits. This was done out of precaution to serve a stop-and-go penalty at the end of the last lap of the race.

In doing so Schumacher crossed the finish line in the pit lane before reaching the Ferrari garage resulting in a dispute on whether he had actually served a stop and go penalty. Schumacher was declared the winner but there was massive confusion. Ferrari argued that the penalty should have been issued within 25 minutes of the incident but instead they were informed after 31 minutes. They also argued that the hand-written notification was unclear as to which penalty was actually being issued: a stop-and-go, or a 10-second addition to Schumacher’s race time.

The FIA’s International Court of Appeal later clarified that it was the latter. The stewards then decided to nevertheless apply the 10-second addition, post-race. However, the added time penalty can only be used to punish an infraction in the last 12 laps of a Grand Prix, and so did not apply here. The stewards eventually rescinded the penalty altogether.

Drama does not end

A protest was lodged by McLaren-Mercedes who felt Ferrari cheated by not having Schumacher serve the penalty, but this was rejected by the FIA. At the hearing for the protest, the International Court of Appeal confirmed that the stewards have made several mistakes in issuing a 10-second time penalty for an incident that happened outside of the last 12 laps of a race. They also exceeded the allowed time limit for the notification of a penalty having been issued.

In a big move, the three stewards involved in the incident handed in their licenses in a meeting of the FIA World Council. India’s Nazir Hoosein, Canada’s Roger Peart and Britain’s Howard Lapsley were the stewards involved. Hoosein was an important figure in FIA politics, as head of one of the FIA’s regional organizations, an FIA Vice-President and member of the World Council.

Schumacher was declared the winner and he managed to close the gap with Hakkinen to two points. The 1998 F1 season went down to the wire, with Hakkinen winning his first championship. Schumacher would finish second and it would take him two more years to establish an era of dominance in the sport.