You could own Michael Schumacher’s record‑breaking Ferrari

Schumacher drove this very car to wins in Spain, Austria, Canada, Italy and the USA, with podiums in Monaco and France to boot. It secured three pole positions and scored three fastest laps, as the cherry on the cake.

Needless to say, the expected sale price is suitably healthy. A predicted £8.4million is what is thought will secure ownership of this incredibly significant and visceral machine. Indeed, on top of everything it’s achieved, it’s still a car from one of the great eras of F1, with a screaming 3.0-litre V10 engine that revs to 19,000rpm and produces well over 800PS (588kW) on a mild tune.

We say incredibly significant because, while it did achieve what it did, there’s also the matter of who was driving to consider. Yes, little else needs to be said of Michael Schumacher’s provenance, but 2003 was the year he broke the record, surpassing Fangio as the most successful driver in terms of championships accrued. Those five wins, those fastest laps, were steps along the way to Michael Schumacher’s sixth world drivers’ championship, topping The Maestro and beating a record that had stood for 46 years.

Such was Ferrari’s incredible form at the time, and such was the dominance of its cars, the F2003-GA was actually little more than a development of the F2002 the year before. This is indicative of an era of dominance, in which pretty much the rest of the grid was playing catch-up.

Images courtesy of RM Sotheby's.