Watch Mick Schumacher drive his father's championship-winning Ferrari F2002 F1 car
An emotional farewell at Fiorano
FORMULA 2 rookie Mick Schumacher has further emulated his F1 champion father by driving one the Ferraris in which Michael Schumacher won one of his record-breaking seven world titles.
While it’s not the first time Schumacher, 20, has driven one his dad’s race-winning cars (he completed demonstration laps in a 2004 season Ferrari ahead of the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim earlier in the year), Mick’s shakedown in the Ferrari F2002 marks the first time he’s driven an F1 car around the test track at Fiorano.
The particular F2002 chassis that Mick Schumacher drove is the same one his father piloted to his fifth F1 championship that year. Of Michael Schumacher’s 11 victories that year, three of them were secured in that chassis — including a controversial win over teammate Rubens Barrichello at the Austrian Grand Prix, and a dominant first place finish in France that secured the world title with six races of the season still to go.
Speaking after getting out of the single seater, Mick Schumacher said: “It was always a dream for me to drive this car. It was also the first time for me to drive a Formula 1 car on the Fiorano track, so it was very special.”
While Mick will return to the cockpit of an open-wheel racing car for the final race of the 2019 Formula 2 season next week in Abu Dhabi, the future of the Ferrari F2002 is less clear. On November 30 (the same day young Schumacher takes to the track in the Formula 2 feature race), the Ferrari will be auctioned off by RM Sotheby’s, with the vendor estimating the famous car will sell for between $5.5m to $7.5m (around £4.2m to £5.8m).
It’s unlikely the new owner will decide to drive such an historically important single seater on track, though the F2002’s current owner has agreed to pay for a full rebuild of the car’s seven-speed transmission and 823bhp V10 engine. The the highest bidder will then collect the overhauled car in person at the Fiorano test track.
A portion of the proceeds generated by the Ferrari F2002’s sale will be donated to the Keep Fighting Foundation, a charity set-up by Michael Schumacher’s family to continue the seven-time champion’s charitable work following a skiing accident in 2013 that left him with severe head injuries.
Additional Michael Schumacher memorabilia going under the hammer at RM Sotheby’s Abu Dhabi sale includes a 1992 Benetton B192 racing car the driver used during his first full season in Formula 1, and a print depicting Michael Schumacher’s victory at the 2000 Japanese Grand Prix that saw the German win his third championship (and his first of five with Ferrari).
Like the F2002 single seater, the sale of the artwork will be used tor raise money for the Keep Fighting Foundation.
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