Friday's Ferrari

The Ferrari & Maserati Festival of Racing meeting at Donington Park in May 2003 included a demonstration run by a 1999 Ferrari F399 and this is what the programme of the event had to say about the car:

'Living the Dream

Track demonstrations are an integral part of the Ferrari & Maserati Festival of Racing and the same will be true this weekend.

A genuine F1 Ferrari will be in action here driven by Irishman Michael Cullen.

"It's quite a famous car," explains Cullen. "It's owned by Paddy Shovlin and Kieran Caulfield who both race 360s, but it's the car that both Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine drove in 1999, chassis number 194. Schumacher crashed it while leading the Canadian Grand Prix, and then it gained notoriety by sparking the barge board debate at that year's Malaysian Grand Prix. Irvine drove it there and in Japan, so really, it's the car with which he didn't win the World Championship!"

Yeah, OK, history lesson over! What's it like to drive, Cullen?

"Oh, it's fantastic. It's mind-blowingly fast, like nothing I've ever driven before, but bear in mind that it is worth a lot of money, and it's not my car, so I don't do qualifying laps in it! I treat it with a great deal of respect and drive it fast enough to give myself a thrill. It doesn't have any power steering, as that is the most troublesome part of the car, so it's a bit heavy. But, hey, I'm a Ferrari driver! I'm living my dream!"

History relates that 1999 was a slightly frustrating season for Ferrari. It started well enough when Eddie Irvine won in Australia, and Michael Schumacher took the chequer in San Marino and Monte Carlo. Two wins for Mika Hakkinen followed, and then Heinz-Harald Frentzen's Jordan won in France. That meant that Michael Schumacher arrived at Silverstone needing a win. Sadly, he suffered his infamous accident at Stowe on lap one and was hospitalized with his injuries. Irvine, then, took up the cudgels on behalf of Ferrari. Wins in Austria and Germany came Eddie's way, as did victory in Malaysia, but third in the final round gave the title to Mika Hakkinen. Since then, though, Ferrari's winning trend has been almost unbreakable.'