German master tames his apprentice

A near-death experience last season has only sharpened Schumacher's winning instinct

Self-belief is necessary armour for Formula One drivers and only the very few are so superior they force their team-mates to acknowledge as much.

Gerhard Berger felt liberated from intolerable pressure once he had accepted Ayrton Senna was untouchable, and Eddie Irvine never saw any sense in pretending he was as good as Michael Schumacher.

Rubens Barrichello has moved into Irvine's car at Ferrari this season, predictably promising to take on Schumacher. Three races into their partnership, Schumacher leads the championship with a maximum of 30 points. Barrichello is second, 21 points adrift.

A breakdown cost the Brazilian a finish and perhaps second place in his home race, but that is academic. Barrichello now has first-hand experience of motor racing's pre-eminent driver, who may just be reaching the peak of his powers.

Schumacher left the last British Grand Prix on a stretcher, his leg and his championship aspirations broken. He is back at Silverstone tomorrow, seemingly reinforced in body and spirit. It is as if he has found peace with himself as well as the world after the years of confrontation and controversy.

Incidents that tarnished his image were routinely put down to arrogance and a ruthless indifference to fair play. A balanced analysis should take into account the strains imposed by fighting with inferior cars.

Twice, with Benetton, he prevailed and won the championship. For the past four years, with Ferrari, the prize proved elusive, but now the car, in his hands, is good enough to challenge McLaren-Mercedes, practically wheel to wheel.

McLaren's struggle for reliability and a bullet-proof race strategy has served to sharpen Schumacher's focus on the title and what he considers his destiny: to be Ferrari's first winner of the drivers' crown since Jody Scheckter, in 1979.

At the age of 31 and having had time for reflection during his period of recovery and rehabilitation, the German reasons he has a better perspective on life and with it a healthy attitude to racing.

Some within Formula One, including the team owner, Eddie Jordan, thought the accident, which put Schumacher out of racing for three months, might take the edge off his game. He admits he no longer feels the constant compulsion to affirm his status in testing or practice, but the desire for competition when it matters rages as ever it did. His work with Ferrari, after all, is a crusade.

"The championship has been our target ever since I came here," he says. "For five years we've been trying for this. It will be a big relief if we win it.

"But as you get older you do change, you learn what is important. After the accident I had the opportunity to think a lot and freshen up mentally. I was also able to concentrate again on my physical condition and I trained very hard. I have never been in better condition."

Schumacher's mental turmoil, as he lay in the cockpit of his stricken Ferrari, after crashing at Stowe Corner last July, probably proved a defining experience.

"You lie down there and you feel this amazing feeling people talk about when they are passing away," he says. "You get black. You don't see anything any more. Your heart starts beating slower and slower and stops finally, and you feel like you are drifting away.

"And the next moment you come back. And things start to come clear again. You really feel how short life can be. It's interesting to feel what people talk about. You don't have pain. You just go for a moment. I think it's the shock of the impact. It's not an experience I want to go through again.

"I was very lucky. My biggest worry in the moment I felt my leg was broken was that I would have carbon parts sticking into my leg. I would have had an open fracture. I could have poisoned my leg and got a big infection. That would have been a major disaster.

"You feel initially that it's the end of your career. You are going to stop. You are happy that it is only a fracture. But slowly you come back to normal."

For Schumacher, normality is demonstrating car control, race-craft and competitive instinct that set him apart from his contemporaries. Nothing escapes his attention or is left to chance.

When he drove his car on to the grid at Imola, before the San Marino Grand Prix, a fortnight ago, he climbed out, walked straight to a Ferrari engineer scribbling notes on a pad and cupped his hand over the page. Schumacher was conscious of prying TV cameras.

Ferrari have assembled their hugely expensive operation around Schumacher, although his accident and the subsequent dependence on his partner, Irvine, to pick up the championship torch was a reminder that this was supposed to be a two-car team game.

To that end Barrichello felt he would not be expected to re-enact Irvine's subservient role. For two races the new man was close enough to Schumacher to convince himself he could compete with him. Then, at Imola, he lost contact, complaining the balance of the car was not to his liking and that his belts were not properly fastened.

Barrichello recognises Schumacher is "the best at the moment" but is not prepared to concede he is beyond reach. He feels fortune has accompanied Schumacher so far this season.

The Brazilian appears slightly irritated that people may be underestimating him. "Schumacher is so far ahead but we know how quickly the championship can change," the 27-year-old says. "If anyone still thinks I am weak in the head they should see how I am working flat out. I will never settle for second.

"I believe I can beat Michael. It could be at Silverstone, I don't know, but I do believe it will happen. Michael has had perhaps the best start to a season in his career. He has driven superbly, but he's been lucky the McLarens did not finish or score in the first two races.

"Michael is very open, often smiling. He has a lot of confidence. It's open between us but at some point you have to be selfish. I am not being friendly to Michael for him to tell me something. It's a mutual thing. Our wives get on well. I respect him and I think he respects me.

"He is good to work with because he brings the car to the very limit. But he is no better than I expected. He is the toughest team-mate I have had but I will make sure I am the toughest for him. We'll fight on the track.

"I'm sure I'll have a shot at the championship. If it's not this year, it will be some time. It takes time to settle into a team but I hate it when people try to comfort me and say they understand that it takes time."

Barrichello has no complaints, only gratitude for the way Ferrari have embraced him since he arrived from the Stewart-Ford team that became Jaguar, and he already appreciates the orchestration of Ross Brawn, the team's much-vaunted technical director.

"At testing they never mentioned Schumacher," he recalls. "I was surprised. But it was fantastic for me. It was really open for me to get to know the car and the team and it gave me confidence.

"Everything Ross does is done with a kind of supremacy. He is so sure of what he's doing. He can change tactics so quickly because he is so sure. At Jordan and Stewart they were not prepared for other situations. I talk to him on the radio and it's as if we're on the sofa at my home."

Most drivers will be sitting uncomfortably if rain falls on this Easter Sunday race, but Barrichello will not mind that. Like Schumacher, he is renowned as a specialist in the wet.

"We've not met in the wet," he says, eagerness obvious in his expression. "I'm more technical in the wet. He's more aggressive. I'd be curious to see what kind of race we would have."