Classic Michael Schumacher Ferrari F1 car up for auction

The F2001b Ferrari Formula 1 car that Michael Schumacher drove at the start of the 2002 campaign is going up for auction this week.

The F2001b chassis was an updated version of the car Schumacher drove to the 2001 title - his fourth world championship - while the Ferrari continued to work on its 2002 challenger.

The chassis raced at the opening two rounds of the 2002 campaign.

Schumacher won the opening round of that year in F2001b at the Australian Grand Prix, beating Juan Pablo Montoya in the Williams by 18.6 seconds.

The German went on to finish third in F2001b at the following Malaysian GP having claimed Ferrari’s 150th pole the day before at Sepang.

From the Brazilian GP at round three, F2001b was replaced by the F2002, which Schumacher would go on to win 10 races in and finish second at the rest to claim his fifth world title.

So dominant was Schumacher and Ferrari that year that he was crowned champion in July’s French GP with six races in hand.

F2001b, chassis 215, will go up for auction at Sotheby’s Sealed’s Monterey Car Week in California between 16-19 August.

No price tag has been attributed to the car so far, however an F2002 chassis driven by Schumacher sold for £5 million in 2019.

More recently, the F2003-GA that Schumacher drove to his sixth world title - which, at the time, made him the most successful F1 driver ever in terms of championships - sold in 2022 for £13m at Sotheby’s Luxury Week sale in Geneva.

Other Schumacher Ferrari’s to have gone under the hammer include an F2001, which sold for £5.5m in 2017, and an F300 from 1998 that sold for £5.3m in 2022.