F2001 sells at £2m over estimate, 16 years on from winning F1 titles
Monday 27 November 2017 13:46, UK
Michael Schumacher's 2001 world championship-winning Ferrari has sold for $7.5m at auction in New York.
The sale price (£5.7m) is believed to be a record for a modern F1 car and the F2001 chassis, 211, is one Schumacher clinched the world title with, his fourth, in that year's Hungarian GP.
It is also the chassis Schumacher raced in Monaco for the fifth and final time.
As part of Ferrari's run of five Drivers' and six Constructors' Championships between 1999 and 2004, the 2001 car won both that year's titles at a canter with Schumacher claiming all nine of that season's victories.
Such was the car's superiority that it continued into the opening two races of the next season, taking pole and victory in Australia and then claiming pole again in Malaysia.
Schumacher took the new-and-improved F2002 for the next race in Brazil, winning on the car's debut, while team-mate Rubens Barrichello stuck with the old model for one more race before the F2001 was retired for good
Sotheby's had estimated that the F2001 would sell for between $4-5.5m in Thursday's auction.
