The gravel traps are supposed to slow the cars but this one might as well have been made of polished marble for all

The gravel traps are supposed to slow the cars, but this one might as well have been made of polished marble for all the retarding effect it had. The front brakes locked, scorching great holes the size of dinner plates in the tyres and leaving black marks all the way to the opposite verge as the car shot across Irvine's bows, trailing white smoke from the burning rubber. Schumacher turned in early, on a shallower line, but had not succeeded in getting the nose of his car in front when the two men started to brake for the corner.When Schumacher hit the brakes, it became clear that he was travelling far too fast to take the corner. As Irvine moved his Ferrari to the left in order to set himself up for the very fast right-handed Stowe Corner, Schumacher positioned himself on the right in order to make a run inside his team-mate. But no grand prix driver can countenance such a situation for ever, and the Irishman's victory at Melbourne in the opening race of the season four months ago seems to have encouraged notions of independence.Schumacher was clearly anxious to get past Irvine as quickly as possible, in order to get at Coulthard and Hakkinen. This is Irvine's fourth season as Schumacher's No 2, contracted to support his leader and make way for him when necessary. He had made a poor start from second place on the grid, allowing Irvine to jink round him and hold third place behind the two McLarens as they turned into Copse Corner.

Up the hill to Maggots and through the left- right-left of Beckett's and Chapel the two Ferraris sped as if tied together by a rubber rope, Schumacher jinking from side to side as he tried to find a way past his team-mate.As they went down Hangar Straight at 185mph, the sight of the two Ferraris duelling with each other instead of with the enemy evoked thoughts of the increasing rivalry between the two men. Before it was winched down from the breakdown truck outside the Ferrari garage, the mangled carcass was carefully shrouded with a red satin dust-sheet. Later a Ferrari spokesman announced that the cause of the accident appeared to be a problem with the rear brakes, adding that the car would be taken back to the team's headquarters at Maranello today for extensive analysis.No amount of analysis ever managed to establish the cause of Senna's accident, and the visual evidence of Schumacher's crash was equally inconclusive. Nor had the wide gravel trap, positioned between the track and the wall, succeeded in slowing the car significantly once Schumacher had lost control.While an ambulance was taking the driver to the circuit's medical centre, his car was returning to pits, its damaged nose hidden under an improvised cover of plastic awnings. The barrier held together but failed to stop the front of the car's carbon-fibre monocoque - known as the survival cell - hitting the concrete retaining wall and breaking off.

And, even with today's precautions, the double world champion can count himself lucky. An accident which began at around 170mph ended with the nose of his car piercing a barrier of used tyres at about 100mph. Damon Hill finished fifth, behind his Jordan team-mate, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, and afterwards refused to make an announcement about his future.If Hill and his wife, Georgie, had needed any further stimulus to thoughts of imminent retirement, Schumacher's crash certainly provided it. Professor Sid Watkins, Formula One's medical delegate, said last night that Schumacher will probably be out of action for six weeks, a period which includes the races in Austria, Germany and Hungary. Schumacher may be comforted by the memory of 1994, when he won his first world championship despite missing two races through suspension, and by the news that his principal rival, Mika Hakkinen, also failed to score points at Silverstone yesterday after losing a wheel on his McLaren.The race was won by David Coulthard, Hakkinen's team-mate, ahead of Eddie Irvine in the second Ferrari and Ralf Schumacher, Michael's younger brother, in a Williams. Last night Schumacher was in Northampton General Hospital undergoing surgery to begin the repair of a broken tibia and fibula in his right leg Otherwise, his team declared, he had survived unscathed. The accident deals a severe blow to his attempt to bring Ferrari a first drivers' world championship in a long and often anguished 20 years for motor racing's most revered team.

The safety precautions brought into Formula One as a result of Senna's fatal crash undoubtedly saved Schumacher's own life yesterday, when his Ferrari plunged off the track halfway round the first lap of the British Grand Prix and ran head-on into a barrier. FIVE YEARS ago, Michael Schumacher was following Ayrton Senna through a 190mph curve at Imola when the great Brazilian's car mysteriously left the track and smashed into a wall. But by the 1580s, as the international scene darkened, her guilt or innocence was no longer relevant. Protestant England, feeling increasingly threatened from within and without, could no longer contain her.