The 1992 F1 Season

The 1992 season was dominated by drivers like Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and countless big names. The last that anyone would have paid attention to was one Michael Schumacher, a rookie driver, debuting in the 1991 season. There was hardly any hope that Schumacher would be making the podium of any GP in the 1992 season, leave alone winning it.

Besides, the Benneton as an F1 car constructor would be standing a distant fourth with the top slots being filled by Williams, McLarens and Ferraris. The number 1 driver for Benneton in the 1991 season, Martin Brundle, did not fancy the car finishing any better than a sixth-position, so again, winning was out of the question.

But then again, Michael Schumacher had other plans.

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The Schumacher Juggernaut

Despite all that was said about the Benneton and Schumacher for the 1992 season, Schumacher had already made his mark. Until the Belgian GP, Schumacher had made enough of top finishes to put him fourth overall in the driver’s standings. The only drivers ahead of him were Nigel Mansell and Patrese both driving the lightning-fast Williams, followed by Ayrton Senna, the triple world champion. In other words, Schumacher was already counted among the top guns.

Coming into the Belgian GP, Schumacher had a good qualifying run, coming third overall, ahead of Patrese in one of the Williams; that just goes to show how fast he was. And the only gentlemen ahead of him were Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna, which most would expect.

But race day had some interesting twist of its own.

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The 1992 Belgian Grand Prix

In Schumacher’s own words, he began the day believing that he had a chance to win the race. But then when the race started, he lost position with Ayrton Senna storming into the lead. Then came the twist.

It rained, and all the pit strategies went for a toss. The rain man, Ayrton Senna, was still leading the race while the Williams were planning to change the car tires to wet weather. Senna planned to wait it out instead of changing the tires, and that proved a bit costly.

Senna was grappling for grip, and by the time he changed his tires, he dropped to twelfth position. Senna was only catching up from there and the race appeared well in the hands of the Williams. The two Williams led with Schumacher in third place. The race more or less seemed to finish in that order, until the rain stopped and the team radio was abuzz with instructions for the drivers.

Here’s where Schumacher’s first real chance of win came by too. At one of the kerbs, Schumacher went wide and his teammate, Martin Brundle, overtook him. At that point, Schumacher noticed the wear on his teammate's tires because of the drying track. He immediately asked for a tire change. And the rest was history!

Take a look at the race summary: