Michael Schumacher once won a race from the pit lane after a major stewards blunder at the British Grand Prix.
It happened during the 1998 season, which was shaping up to be very exciting with a closely-contested title race. The German was in the hunt to be crowned world champion for what would have been the third time, but was up against Mika Hakkinen who had a six-point lead heading into the Silverstone race.
And he looked to be in a good position to extend that gap, having qualified on pole position ahead of Schumacher in second, while defending champion Jacques Villeneuve – rocking an eye-watering purple hairdo for the occasion – was one place behind. It set up the prospect of a heavyweight fight at the front, and the excitement built even further when heavy rain swept the track before the race.
Though the downpour stopped, the track was still wet in some places when the lights went out. Hakkinen drove expertly to open a huge gap at the front, but more rain came into play and a spin damaged the Finn's front wing, while a number of other incidents behind him caused the safety car to be deployed.
So by the time the racing resumed, 50 laps in, Schumacher was back on Hakkinen's gearbox and, just two laps later, the McLaren span again to allow the German to race off into the distance. It looked a matter of time until he took the chequered flag to take the initiative in the title race, but then came the note from the stewards.
Schumacher was adjudged to have illegally overtaken Alexander Wurz while the safety car was deployed. It was a handwritten note sent to the team, but it caused some confusion within the Ferrari garage – the stewards had not specified whether 10 seconds would be added to the German's time, or if he had to come into the pits for a stop-and-go.
The team called him in, but it was the last lap of the race and by the time he reached the Ferrari garage, Schumacher had already crossed the finish line. It left the other teams, particularly McLaren, furious as they asserted that the German had not actually served his penalty during the race.
It caused an almighty post-race scrap, not unlike the one involving Mercedes and Red Bull after the end of last year's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in which Lewis Hamilton lost the title to Max Verstappen. Ferrari defended Schumacher by arguing that the penalty was ambiguous and that it had been delivered outside of the usual 25-minute window.
Eventually, the FIA decided in favour of Schumacher. The stewards wanted to retrospectively apply the 10 second penalty to his finish time, but that rule could not be used as the incident didn't take place in the last 12 laps. So eventually they gave up, the penalty was never served and Schumacher's race win stood. But Hakkinen had the last laugh, as he went on to become world champion for the first time by the end of the year.
