Michael Schumacher won his first kart championship at six, following which his far from affluent parents arranged sponsorship from wealthy enthusiasts that enabled Michael to make rapid progress. By 1987 he was German and European kart champion and had left school to work as an apprentice car mechanic, a job that was soon replaced by full-time employment as a race driver. In 1990 he won the German Formula Three championship and was hired by Mercedes to drive sports cars. The next year he made a stunning Formula One debut, qualifying an astonishing seventh in a Jordan for the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, whereupon he was immediately snapped up by Benetton, where in 1992 he won his first Formula One race, again at Spa, the most demanding circuit of them all.

Over the next four seasons with Benetton he won a further 18 races and two world championships. Germany's first world champion was unquestionably worthy of the 1995 driving title, following which he moved to Ferrari, then a team in disarray and without a champion since Jody Scheckter in 1979. The Schumacher-Ferrari combination began promisingly with three wins in 1996 and five more in 1997.

After finishing second overall in 1998, Schumacher's 1999 season was interrupted by a crash at Silverstone where he received a broken leg that kept him out of action for several races. From then on there was no stopping 'Schumi' - who in 2000 became Ferrari's first champion in 21 years, then went on to win the driving title for the next four years in succession. In 2002 he won 11 of the 17 races and finished on the podium in all of them. In 2004 he won 13 of the 18 races, extending his career total to 83 (32 more than his nearest rival, Alain Prost) and winning his seventh championship by a massive margin.

At 36, the oldest in the 2005 field and a 15-year veteran of well over 200 races, the driver who made Formula One racing his personal playground is still at the peak of superlative powers that created two distinct divisions: Michael Schumacher and the rest.