IT REALLY DOESN’T SEEM LIKE 16 YEARS SINCE MICHAEL Schumacher finally ended Ferrari’s wait for a first F1 drivers’ world championship after Jody Scheckter’s 1979 triumph.
The superteam, led by Schumacher, Jean Todt, Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne, had to overcome a powerful McLaren squad. Once that had been achieved, however, Ferrari became unstoppable, recording a level of dominance rarely seen in Formula 1. It set the bar to a height the current Italian team still finds hard to reach.
The 2000 season, which is the focus of this special issue, had plenty of other subplots. Then-rookie Jenson Button laid the foundations for a stellar F1 career, while the fledgling Williams-BMW partnership should arguably have challenged the Ferrari steamroller more strongly in the years that followed. And outside of F1,…