1’14″301: this was the best time recorded in Qualifying for the 2012 Monaco Grand Prix, a time printed at the last useful second by Michael Schumacherwho at the age of 43 in the last season of his F1 career at the wheel of Mercedes was able to trim 80 thousandths to Mark Webber’s Red Bull, 147 thousandths to his box mate Nico Rosberg and 282 thousandths to Lewis Hamilton, then a McLaren driver.
That lap was Michael Schumacher’s last real feat in the Circus, who turns 54 today. A perfect lap which, unfortunately, didn’t really earn the seven-time world champion the start from the pole the following day. The German driver, in fact, had to serve a penalty of five positions on the starting grid due to the rear-end collision against Bruno Senna’s Williams in Spain in the previous Grand Prix.
So starting sixth, the race was a nightmare for the Kaiser who was squeezed into the barriers by Romain Grosjean at the start and then had to raise the white flag due to a technical problem on his W03. A bitter Sunday which does not cancel the perfect lap 24 hours earlier celebrated by Schumacher with his finger raised on the lap back to the pits after the ‘pole position’ which was obviously not even counted at a statistical level given that Michael’s pole starts remained 68.
A few weeks later, still on a street circuit, luck returned some of the credit that Schumacher had put aside in Monaco. In Valencia, in fact, at the end of a daring race, the German driver finished in third place, the only podium obtained in the three-year period 2010-2012 in which he returned to F1 as a Mercedes driver after making all the Ferrari fans fall in love with him from 1996 to 2006 bringing back in 2000 a Drivers’ title that Maranello had lacked for 21 years. You can relive it below on board the magic unleashed by Michael Schumacher on 26 May 2012 when in Monaco in the Principality he put all his opponents in line again on the flying lap.
On his 54th birthday, enjoy some Monaco magic from Michael Schumacher#F1 #KeepFightingMichael pic.twitter.com/sNS9byJzPv
— Formula 1 (@F1) January 3, 2023
#Schumacher #ghost #pole #Monaco #board #VIDEO #FormulaPassion.it