There is a case to be made in support of the claim that in Ferrari and Michael Schumacher we are now witnessing the most dominant combination in Formula One history. Record after record gets beaten; race after race is won. It began almost three years ago, and who knows just when it will end? Barry Kalb explains why Schumacher's accomplishments with Ferrari are unique, and what numbers he has racked up in his three successive World Championship titles with the Italian team

Michael Schumacher's fifth world championship arrived on the crest of a period of sustained domination that is virtually unparalleled in Grand Prix racing history. A lot of factors have gone into his success, but none more important than the man himself.

Several drivers have dominated the field over one or two seasons: Nigel Mansell in 1992, Jim Clark in 1963, Juan Fangio in 1954-55, Alberto Ascari in 1952-1953, to cite the most prominent examples. Fangio also won the world championship four years running, over the 28 races of 1954-'57 seasons, but 1956, in the midst of that streak, was a close contest all the way, and the championship wasn't decided until the final race.

Schumacher's streak has been going almost without interruption since the start of the 2000 season, 46 races and counting. Not only has he won three straight championships, he has racked up numbers along the way that are absolutely staggering.

His fifth championship has inevitably given rise to comparisons between him and Fangio, and renewed discussion about whether one of them (or any other driver) might have been the best ever.

After this month's French Grand Prix, Niki Lauda told an Italian newspaper: "Schumacher is immensely superior to Fangio…He drives like a god...He's a perfect driver, the greatest of any era." Stirling Moss, following Ferrari's faux pas at this year's Austrian Grand Prix, said he didn't think Schumacher was in any way Fangio's equal.

But Lauda had said Ayrton Senna was the greatest ever immediately after Senna's death in 1994. And Moss's comments have always been much like his one-time ability to flick a car through a corner at impossible speeds: more instinctual than the result of analytical thinking.

The point being that celebrities, including racing drivers, often make snap judgments, and historical match-ups are a fool's game. Tiger Woods never golfed against Ben Hogan or Jack Nicklaus. Muhammad Ali never fought Rocky Marciano or Joe Louis. Schumacher never drove against Fangio or Tazio Nuvolari. The passage of time, changes in conditions and improvements in sporting equipment make exact comparisons impossible.

It is fairly simple, on the other hand, to look over the entire history of a sport and say with confidence: these were among the very best who ever competed. This is where Schumacher has earned an unassailable position.

Advantages versus Driving Skill

On television, in Internet chat rooms and in such dedicated magazines as Atlas F1, there is endless discussion of factors that have contributed to Schumacher's dominance: he has the best car, he has the best tires, he has superb luck; the competition is weak; the bulk of his employers' energies are aimed at achieving his ascendancy.

All true to a certain extent. They've been prominent factors as well in the successes of Fangio, Ascari, Clark, Senna, Mansell, Alain Prost, Jackie Stewart. Yet in the end, after the engineers and mechanics have done their jobs, after the team managers have formulated their strategies, it's the driver who has to take the car around the track and across the finish line faster than everyone else. How many times have lesser drivers stepped into superior cars, enjoying all the advantages granted Schumacher, and still failed to win?

"The car is without a doubt extraordinary," Giancarlo Minardi said of Ferrari and Schumacher after the French GP, "but the driver is an artist."

An artist who wins races relentlessly, at a career-long rate surpassed only by Fangio and Ascari. Statistics can't tell us who was better or worse and they sometimes mislead, but over a period of time they do give us a pretty good picture of how we got from there to here. Here is what Schumacher has accomplished in just the 46 races since he began his championship run in 2000:

He has finished 40 of the 46, all 40 in the points, and all but two of those on the podium. He has scored 27 wins, 24 poles, 337 points. Along the way, he has set such records as 14 straight podium finishes, 17 straight points finishes, and 145 straight points.

Perspective: only four drivers other than Schumacher have reached 27 championship wins in their entire careers, let alone in 46 races; only eight others have ever reached 24 poles, only 10 others have reached 337 points. Make allowances for changes in the scoring system over the years, and for the fact that top drivers used to race in two or three times as many races as today's Formula One drivers, and Schumacher's recent record is still incredible.

At the Nurburgring in June, he surpassed Prost's one remaining record, the number of podium finishes (he now has 109 to Prost's 106). This makes him the record holder in every major category of racing achievement except poles, in which he is second only to Senna. On a per-start basis, only four drivers lead Schumacher in any major category: Fangio in all categories, Ascari and Clark in several each, and Senna in poles per start. (Juan Pablo Montoya has also passed Schumacher in poles per start for now, but Montoya has fewer than two full seasons under his belt. It takes six or seven seasons in good cars and bad before a true picture of a driver's career achievements comes into focus. Take a look at Jacques Villeneuve.)

Schumacher's dominance has increased relentlessly over these three seasons. In 2000, he beat Mika Hakkinen 108 points to 89, tying his own and Mansell's record of nine wins in a single season. In 2001, he scored 123 points (a new record) to second-place David Coulthard's 65, again with nine wins. After the first 12 races of this season, he already has nine wins, and 106 points, virtually as many as the next three drivers combined. He'll probably set another half dozen new records before the season is over.

Advantages Overstated

Advantages Schumacher has definitely had, but the argument that he has benefited inordinately from superior equipment and inferior competition compared with his predecessors does not stand up to scrutiny. Take the 1954 season, for example.

Fangio won six of the eight world championship grand prix races that year (Indianapolis was the 9th race counting towards the WDC). He was driving the brand-new Mercedes Benz W196, which was as far ahead of the field then as Ferrari's F2002 has been this season. His competition was minimal: Giuseppe Farina, the 1950 world champion, started only two races in '54; Ascari, the 1952 and 1953 champion, was able to start only four races in a grab-bag of cars, and didn't finish a single one.

Competition such as it was that year came from the inferior Ferraris of Juan Froilan Gonzalez, who started only seven of the eight races, and Mike Hawthorn, who - despite some superb moments on the track - was never in Fangio's league and was then still a relative novice.

Two years earlier, in 1952, Ascari won six of the seven grands prix, in an all-conquering Ferrari and against a depleted field: Fangio sat out that entire championship season because of a pre-season racing injury. Mansell's 1992 Williams was so superior that he took 14 poles to a mere one for the qualifying king, Senna.

Ferrari's decision to slow Rubens Barrichello in Austria this spring and let Schumacher through in the final turn caused more debate and outcry than Formula One has experienced in half a decade, and ostensibly lent support to the argument that Schumacher's dominance has been the result of team orders. A somewhat similar incident in 1956 has been discussed a lot since Austria, but let's take another look at that in light of recent events:

In the final race of '56, Fangio's Ferrari failed. His young teammate, Peter Collins, was in the lead at the time, and if Collins won that race, the championship was his. Instead, Collins pulled in and turned his car over to Fangio (drivers could share cars and split points in those days), letting Moss through to win the race.

Barrichello's controversial side-step in Austria affected the timing of this year's championship, but turns out to be irrelevant to the outcome. Collins's gesture, by contrast, was directly responsible for Fangio's 1956 world title.

And remember also that during Schumacher's first two years at Ferrari, 1996 and 1997, the car was a pig, and he still manhandled it those two years to eight wins and one near championship. As for the rest: the best teams have always hired the best drivers and given them the wherewithal to win races. Schumacher has enjoyed no unusual advantages for a multiple world champion.

Still Fighting After All These Years

Schumacher has now started 172 championship races, more than all but 10 other drivers in history. You might expect to seem him backing off at this point, going for the easy points rather than fighting. Instead, he continues to give his all.

His victory at Silverstone in changing conditions was a classic of skill, aggressiveness, strategy, car control and racecraft: he harassed Montoya relentlessly at the start, eventually passed him, built up a steady lead while other drivers were sliding all over the wet track, and finally cruised to a comfortable win. He even set a couple of fastest laps in the closing minutes for good measure, only to back off at the very end and leave Barrichello room to score the ultimate fastest lap.

At Magny-Cours, he again shadowed Montoya at the start, passed him in the pits and began to walk away from the field; he was demoted to third by a drive-through penalty, pulled back to within a second of race leader Kimi Raikkonen, and passed Raikkonen to take the win when the young Finn slid wide on oil just before the end.

It was fitting that Schumacher cemented his fifth championship with a pass that involved the very same aggressiveness and tactical skill that have marked his driving since early in his career. Raikkonen's slide was a stroke of racing luck, but Schumacher made sure the luck went his way: as he powered by he kept the hapless young Finn pinned on the grass, giving him no chance to slip back onto the tarmac in front of the Ferrari. He then drove faster than Raikkonen for four of the five remaining laps.

"Even when Michael hasn't had competitive cars, he has always given 100 percent," David Coulthard, Raikonnen's teammate, remarked recently.

Watching Michael Schumacher race may have become predictable, but it is rarely boring to watch a master practice his craft.

Michael Schumacher: Domination, Years 2000-2002

All stats through Germany 2002. Races in boldface signify a win. White background: 1st through 3rd place. Light yellow background: 4th through 6th place. Green: Did not finish.

2000	Race	1st	2nd	3rd	4th-6th	Pts	Poles	DNF
Australia	1	1				10
Brazil	2	1				10
San Marino	3	1				10
Great Britain	4			3		4
Spain	5				5	2	1
Europe	6	1				10
Monaco	7					0	1	1
Canada	8	1				10	1
France	9					0	1	1
Austria	10					0		1
Germany	11					0		1
Hungary	12		2			6	1
Belgium	13		2			6
Italy	14	1				10	1
USA	15	1				10	1
Japan	16	1				10	1
Malaysia	17	1				10	1
2000 totals	17	9	2	1	1	108	9	4
2001	Race	1st	2nd	3rd	4th-6th	Pts	Poles	DNF
Australia	1	1				10	1
Malaysia	2	1				10	1
Brazil	3		2			6	1
San Marino	4					0		1
Spain	5	1				10	1
Austria	6		2			6	1
Monaco	7	1				10
Canada	8		2			6	1
Europe	9	1				10	1
France	10	1				10
Great Britain	11		2			6	1
Germany	12					0		1
Hungary	13	1				10	1
Belgium	14	1				10
Italy	15				4	3
USA	16		2			6	1
Japan	17	1				10	1
2001 totals	17	9	5	0	1	123	11	2
2002	Race	1st	2nd	3rd	4th-6th	Pts	Poles	DNF
Australia	1	1				10
Malaysia	2	1				10	1
Brazil	3			3		4
San Marino	4	1				10	1
Spain	5	1				10	1
Austria	6	1				10
Monaco	7		2			6
Canada	8	1				10
Europe	9		2			6
Great Britain	10	1				10
France	11	1				10
Germany	12	1				10	1
2002 totals (to date)	12	9	2	1	0	106	4	0
Comparisons*	Races	1st	2nd	3rd	4th-6th	Pts	Poles	DNF
*For consistency, all points calculated at 10 for 1st place, none for fastest lap
Schumacher 2000-02 Totals	46	27	9	2	2	337	24	6
Per-start		58.7%				7.33	52.2%	13.0%
Ascari 1952-53 Totals*	14	11	0	0	0	110	11	4
Per-start**		78.6%				7.86	78.6%	28.6%
**Started only 6 of 7 GPs in '52; did start Indy '52, which is not counted here
Fangio 1954-57 Totals*	28	17	3	1	3	198	18	4
Per-start		60.7%				7.07	64.3%	14.3%
Clark 1963 Totals*	10	7	1	1	0	80	7	1
Per-start		70.0%				8.00	70.0%	10.0%
Mansell 1992 Totals	16	9	3	0	0	108	14	4
Per-start		56.3%				6.75	87.5%	25.0%