The 2003 season began with mixed feelings: while some wanted to see Michael Schumacher coping with the pressures and challenges of fighting for his record sixth title, other feared another cakewalk that would leave the sport in poor shape. In the end, however, the year turned out to be more exciting that anyone could have hoped for. Richards Barnes reviews the memorable 2003 season

When the 2003 season rolled into action at Melbourne back in March, it was with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the sport faced the exciting prospect of Michael Schumacher eclipsing Juan Manuel Fangio's record of almost fifty years, and becoming the first driver in the modern era to capture six World Drivers Championship titles. On the other hand, it was this very dominance by Schumacher and Ferrari that threatened to suffocate Formula One as a spectacle.

It wasn't just the dominance alone that had turned Schumacher's 2002 championship into such an uninspiring cakewalk. The sport had become processional in other ways too, and dogged by a spirit of negativism. Frustrated by the aerodynamic characteristics and absurdly short braking distances of the current cars, drivers had resorted to making their passes strategically during the pitstops instead of classical slipstreaming and outbraking manoeuvres on the track. Ferrari's cynical approach of implementing team orders, even with the era's best driver and most dominant car at their disposal, only added to the general atmosphere of gloom surrounding the sport.

The off-season regulation changes, including the restructuring of the points system and the implementation of single-lap qualifying, offered little prospect of turning around a desperate situation. Small wonder, then, that most observers expected Schumacher's historic sixth championship challenge to yield more of the same one-sided and uninspired processional racing that characterised 2002. How wrong they would be...

The season started on an refreshingly unpredictable note at Melbourne, with Schumacher, Williams' Juan Pablo Montoya and McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen all managing to squander potentially race winning positions, leaving Raikkonen's teammate David Coulthard to claim the honours. Two weeks later in Malaysia, Schumacher clashed with Renault's Jarno Trulli, ending his victory chances. At the next race in Brazil, not even his favoured wet weather could revive the German's form. After a race-ending spin, a bemused Schumacher was left stranded at the trackside, and seemed to be pondering the same unthinkable as most racing fans. After a 2002 season in which he finished every race on the podium, how was it possible that Michael Schumacher could have failed to register a single podium finish in the first three races of 2003, surrendering a seventeen point deficit to championship leader Raikkonen? Suddenly, we had a genuine championship tussle on our hands.

The unveiling of Ferrari's 2003 design, the F2003-GA, restored the balance once the F1 circus reached Europe. After Schumacher victories in each of its first three outings, the new Ferrari looked simply too strong. However, that was before Europe's searing and rainless summer, combined with Michelin's emerging dry tyre dominance, threw in another plot twist. As the Ferrari/Bridgestone advantage waned, Raikkonen clung on doggedly in McLaren's dated MP4-17D design, and the Williams pairing of Montoya and Ralf Schumacher launched their own assault on the German's coveted crown.

History will record that Michael Schumacher eventually prevailed, but nobody would have predicted that his record-breaking sixth title would be clinched by grimly hanging on to the final championship point on offer at the season's very last race in Japan. In terms of taut storyline plotting, it couldn't have been scripted better.

The 2003 season didn't herald the dawn of a new racing era, free from corporate interests and regulatory limitations. On the contrary, the Michelin tyre issue late in the season illustrated that many of the sport's key battles will continue to be fought by the lawyers, not the drivers. While the new regulations may also have played a small part in stretching the championship interest down to the wire, artificial means of levelling the field aren't the long term answer.

Instead, the appeal of the 2003 season came down to sheer fortuitous timing. F1 works to its own set of technological biorhythms, the teams' fortunes ebbing and waning depending on their position on the development curve. When a team with a top driver produces a dominant car (Williams 92/93, Ferrari 2002), the result is a whitewash championship devoid of tension. The most thrilling championship battles of the last twenty years (1986, 1991, 2000) usually occur when one championship contending team has just passed its development peak, while another is just approaching its own peak.

Traditionally, it's been a two-horse race - Williams and McLaren in 1986, McLaren and Williams in 1991, McLaren and Ferrari in 2000. During the 2003 season, we enjoyed the rare phenomenon of three teams very close to the development peak, with none of the three getting it absolutely right. The mix became even more intriguing with a fourth contender at those circuits favouring Renault's superlative front-end design.

In the past, the technological peak was often determined by the short term commitment of a dominant engine supplier - Honda in the late 1980s and Renault in the early to mid 1990s. With Renault, Toyota and Jaguar joining Ferrari as 'do it all' manufacturers, and McLaren, Williams and BAR entering into longer-term contracts with bespoke engine suppliers, the two-horse races of the past will hopefully give way to more evenly-balanced seasons like 2003.

However, the technology is just one half of the equation. The best machinery means nothing without the driving talents to showcase it. In this respect, 2003 was one of the best seasons in memory. Montoya, Raikkonen, young Spaniard Fernando Alonso and Australian Mark Webber had all shown glimpses of their talent in previous seasons. During 2003, each moved up another level and provided more evidence of genuine star quality.

Michael Schumacher will continue to showcase his immense talents in F1. However, even if he decided to retire from the sport overnight, there are more than enough legitimate contenders for his throne. Schumacher himself must have been surprised at the calm determination displayed by his main championship rivals Raikkonen and Montoya.

Having succumbed to intense championship pressure on several occasions during his career, Schumacher knows the feeling. Nobody could have blamed Raikkonen or Montoya for losing their nerve down the championship stretch, and being pressured into silly errors. It was, after all, their first legitimate title challenges, and they were facing a rival whose championship experience dwarfs their own. Yet it was ultimately the German favourite who ended up looking the most vulnerable of the three contenders.

It would be tempting to ascribe Raikkonen's and Montoya's nerveless displays to a form of beginner's luck, in which the challengers held their composure purely because they failed to grasp the enormity of the occasion. Yet even the most cursory assessment of the two stars shows this assumption to be false. They may both be relatively inexperienced compared to Michael Schumacher, but neither is naive. Both know full well what is at stake, and what is expected of them.

Together, the technological and driver aspects of the 2003 season represent a new era of ultra-professionalism in F1. Time was, a driver could win the championship even after suffering half a dozen or more mechanical breakdowns during a season. This year, the top five finishers in the championship suffered a grand total of five mechanical DNFs among them - a mechanical reliability rating of almost 95%.

As recently as 2000, Michael Schumacher could smile and shrug after his car failed at Monaco and claim 'That's racing'. These days, even a single mechanical DNF could settle the championship. As if the Schumacher brothers needed yet another record, they are now the only brothers to complete an entire season without a mechanical breakdown between them. For Michael, that 100% reliability was critical. How different could this year's outcome have been if Raikkonen's engine hadn't expired while leading at Nurburgring, or if Montoya's car hadn't let him down in Austria and Japan?

In the past, the teams had Saturday evening to finalise race preparations. Even denied that extra time this year, they still produced unprecedented reliability. The drivers used to have four opportunities to set a qualifying time, now they have one. Rookie drivers used to have a season or two to settle in and start performing. After Alonso and Raikkonen, the next generation of rookies will be expected to perform at peak levels almost immediately.

The sport's practitioners still have to operate within very narrow technological limitations, which doesn't always result in thrilling wheel to wheel racing. However, within those restrictions, nobody can deny that they have ratcheted their professional efforts up to levels that would have been unthinkable even a few short seasons ago. That is the level that the 'pinnacle of motorsports' should represent. The most intriguing prospect is to see how they will better it and up the ante again in 2004.