Schumacher

SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium -- The years roll by and Michael Schumacher and Spa are still a marriage made in heaven.

"It's certainly a love story because I love the circuit," Ferrari's five-time world champion said this week, 10 years after the first win of his career at the Belgian track nestling in the Ardennes forests. "It's one of the best we have around. Suzuka and Spa are for me the two ultimate circuits. I call it my living room because I feel like it is."

Spa, the historic track where he and the late Ayrton Senna share the record of five wins, is where Schumacher made his debut as a replacement at Jordan for local driver Bertrand Gachot.

Schumacher's manager Willi Weber had convinced team boss Eddie Jordan his young German protege knew his way around the circuit, prudently keeping to himself the fact it was only on a bicycle.

It is where the Ferrari driver last year broke Alain Prost's record of 51 career wins and where Saturday he claimed the pole for a race that could add another record to his collection as the first driver to take 10 victories in a single season.

The German makes much of his ignorance of statistics, suggesting vaguely that maybe it was 11 years since his first win, but some details are engraved in his mind as if they happened yesterday.

Of that 1992 win with Benetton, Schumacher recalled how he had made a mistake and been overtaken by British teammate Martin Brundle.

As the other Benetton went through, he noticed that Brundle's tires were badly worn and seized the opportunity to make a pitstop. It was a key decision and it won the race.

"That was sort of the reason for my victory," said Schumacher, who has gone on to notch 61 more wins since that day to equal Juan Manuel Fangio's record of five championships. "It gave me important time on the circuit with dry tyres to build up a lead. That is the main memory I have.

"It was the start of a very good future which obviously nobody could have expected at all how it would end up."

Brundle sees it slightly differently.

There was never any doubt that Schumacher, snapped up controversially by Benetton in the immediate aftermath of his hugely impressive Jordan debut in 1991, was anything other than a star in waiting.

"It was only a question of when he was going to win his first race and when he was going to win his championships rather than if," said the Briton. "Right from the year before when he was with Jordan he was pretty astonishing ... There was always this posse around him of press. He was the new coming, there was no doubt about it. And he caught Senna's attention."

Spa has always been the driver's circuit, a classic high-speed track that sorts the men from the boys and where a driver can make a real difference.

But Brundle still feels that Spa smiled on Schumacher that August afternoon 10 years ago.

"He was very lucky that day in '92, because he went wide and the front wing was very low on the Benetton. How he didn't lose his front wing, I'll never know.

"In fact I was going to come in for tyres that lap, we'd all been running on wets for the whole race, and then I moved up to P3 (third) and the Williams was just down the road and I decided to leave it one more lap.

"I think he came in because he had nothing to lose at that point and ended up winning the race.

"It was just one of those twists of fate but it was clever. He's always had his brain engaged at all times, hasn't he?

"I think it's just a small example of how he makes the difference. It's that presence of mind that keeps you focused on what you're doing rather than go off into "how did I make that mistake' or whatever."

Schumacher did not win again that year but his ability to read a race and pick up invaluable data when others might be distracted by the heat of battle was something that was to be seen regularly from then on.

It has often been said that he divides his life into compartments, rigorously separating the professional and personal and shutting out anything that might make him less effective on the track.

He has been controversial over the years, clinical and unfair even, but he is also a supremely versatile driver, able to spot an advantage and adapt rapidly.

"Often it is inclement weather here or changeable conditions and that's where Michael absolutely excels," said Brundle.

"I think the cars are a bit easier to drive now than they were but it used to reward massively hanging it on the line. Every corner gives you payback here."