End of Season Celebrations at Vallelunga
7.11.99
Michael Schumacher, Mika Salo and Luca Badoer demonstrated Ferrari Formula One cars at the Vallelunga circuit, north of Rome today, in a marvellous celebration of Ferrari's 1999 Formula One Constructors' championship win. The trio were enthusiastically applauded by some 25,000 spectators during a fabulous, but also light-hearted demonstration.
The occasion was Ferrari's traditional end-of-season championship finals of their worldwide F355 Challenge and their historic series. But the Formula One team was also there in strength with two F399s, and drivers Michael Schumacher, Mika Salo and the team's official test driver Luca Badoer.
The latter pair were out first, demonstrating the cars with a standing start in front of the main grandstand and then lapping in close proximity for several laps before coming into the pits. Then Michael Schumacher took out Badoer's car to huge applause from the packed grandstands. After a quick lap and a fabulous, smoking standing start, he came into the pits for his first pit stop, then went out and came back in for his second.
But suddenly a thief appeared - masked and dressed in black and white stripes - and stole one of the tyres! It was a fabulous moment of comedy as he ran around the car with the wheel before allowing it to be fitted again. It was a lovely response to the criticism of 'the lost wheel at Nürburgring' when Ferrari only seemed to have three wheels at Eddie Irvine's first pit stop.
Schumacher rejoined but promptly did a U-turn at the end of the pit lane and set off around the track the wrong way! He did a couple of laps - with a best of 1m 14.6s - before doing a spin turn and doing a single lap and then coming into the pits. The crowd loved it, and it was all live on TV as well!
(acknowledgement : Michael Schumacher Website)
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