Schumacher at the top of his game

Yesterday we celebrated Michael Schumacher's first Formula One appearance 25 years ago at Spa. That début ended in clucth failure, but Schumacher would go on to win six Belgian Grand Prix - more wins at Spa than any other driver in the sport's history.

Pictured here is Schumacher's last time standing on the top step of the podium here, which was in 2002 when he saw off Ferrari team mate Rubens Barrichello and McLaren rival Juan Pablo Montoya to claim victory by almost two seconds.

That season Schumacher finished first or second in every race except for the Malaysian Grand Prix, where he finished 'only' third, thus achieving a podium position in every race. He won a then-record 11 Grands Prix, surpassing the previous record of 9 wins which had been jointly held by himself (1995, 2000 and 2001) and Nigel Mansell (1992).

He won the 2002 drivers title by a country mile with almost double the number of points from Barrichello who finished a distant second. It was the fifth of Schumacher's seven world championships.

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.