Michael Schumacher’s most dominant Formula 1 Ferrari, the F2002 from the 2002 season, will be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s at this year’s season-closing Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on November 30, and it could become the most expensive F1 car ever. The F2002, in which Schumacher took three grand prix wins including that which sealed his fifth world title, is estimated to go for $5,500,000 to $7,500,000, nudging the record for an F1 car at auction, the Ferrari F2001 which at RM Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction in November 2017 sold for $7,504,000. The estimate also is well above the £3,000,000 that Nigel Mansell’s FW14B is reckoned will bring in at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.
This Abu Dhabi auction will feature a special collection of more than 30 F1 and other notable cars and is the first collaboration between F1 and RM Sotheby’s. It is to take place on the Saturday evening of this year’s grand prix meeting at the Yas Marina circuit, and the cars going under the hammer will even be paraded down the track’s main straight and driven along the F1 pitlane.
From 2000 to 2004 Michael Schumacher and Ferrari, with the likes of Jean Todt, Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne at the team, won five drivers’ and constructors’ championship doubles in a row. And appropriately 2002, right in the middle of the run, was likely its most crushing campaign. Ferrari won 15 out of 17 races and in only a handful of them did even a token challenge to Ferrari last beyond a few laps. Schumacher finished on the podium in every race and only once finished outside the top two, in Malaysia where his front wing was knocked off on lap one.
And this Ferrari F2002 going under the hammer, chassis 219, played a vital part in the 2002 season, being taken by Schumacher to three grands prix wins, in San Marino, a controversial win in Austria when team-mate Rubens Barrichello gave him first place on the line due to team orders, and a win in France. The French win also secured Schumacher’s fifth world drivers’ championship title well ahead of time, in July with six races remaining.
Further, a percentage of proceeds from the sale will be donated to the Keep Fighting Foundation, founded by Schumacher’s family. RM Sotheby’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix auction will be the region’s first-ever major international collector car auction. It will take place in the Paddock Club overlooking the pitlane. The sale will bring together a selection of significant grand prix racing machines, road-going sportscars with an historical connection to the world of motorsport, alongside a broader collection of hand-picked, blue-chip classic and supercars. This will include a 1990 Ferrari F40 signed on the rear wing by current Ferrari F1 driver Sebastian Vettel.
RM Sotheby’s car specialist Oliver Camelin described the F2002 as “truly special; it represents one of the last Rory Byrne-designed, V10 era cars and was like a guided missile in acquiring wins on route to a championship won with sheer racing dominance. As a result, it remains as one of the most dominant Formula 1 racing cars in history and is fittingly joined by the ultimate in Ferrari supercars in the virtually as-new Ferrari F40.”
Images courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
