‘Crown jewel’ Schumacher Ferrari on auction at Monaco GP

As motorsport fans prepare to tune into the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend, auction house RM Sotheby’s has announced the availability of the 2001 Michael Schumacher Formula One car on the sidelines.

The German record title holder won the Monaco Grand Prix of the same year, and also clinched the world championship in the same season, his fourth, in the Chassis 211 car on sale. Though not the primary car for the 2001 season, it is regarded as the crown jewel among all Schumacher F1 cars.

Schumacher relied mostly on Chassis 210, part of a range of cars masterminded by Jean Todt, Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne — a collective known as the super team. Chassis 211 is the final Ferrari F1 car to win in Monaco in a championship-winning year, in a race where Schumacher pipped two-time champion Mika Häkkinen, Ferrari teammate Rubens Barrichello, Juan Pablo Montoya, Jos Verstappen (father to Max) and younger brother Ralf Schumacher.

It comes from the golden era of screaming V10 engines, with an output of 611kW at an incredible 17,000rpm. Notable achievements include pole position and winning the 2001 Hungarian Grand Prix, but it was the reigning F1 world champion’s stunning Monaco 2001 drive in the car that’s for the books.

A weekend of attrition started out with a messy qualification for Schumacher resulting in a damaged suspension after brushing the barrier to avoid the Arrows of Enrique Bernoldi. This forced a car change into Chassis 211, but David Coulthard had capitalised, snatching a pole position start. 

Schumacher lined up in second position for the Sunday race but with a clear view ahead after Coulthard’s McLaren experienced launch control failures on the formation lap, killing the engine. The Scot joined up at the back. The start grid included Finnish drive Häkkinen in third, Barrichello in fourth and the younger Ralf Schumacher in fifth.

The German driver launched the F2001 strongly and had cemented first place entering the Sainte Devote Corner, the first challenge that drivers must face on the Monaco circuit. Despite setting some of the fastest laps on the day, Häkkinen had no reply to Schumacher, and lost the position to Barrichello on lap eight.

Schumacher went on to extract an 18 second gap from the rest, and also closed to lap Coulthard by lap 25. He slowed down to allow Barrichello to catch up for a dramatic Ferrari 1-2 finish.

Chassis number 211 remained on the sidelines after Monaco, serving as a standby for the Canadian Grand Prix. It was called into action in qualifying, though, after Barrichello connected with the “Wall of Champions”.  Schumacher again climbed into chassis 211 for the warm-up laps ahead of the European and French Grands Prix before returning to F2001 210.

A niggle in the seven-speed semi-automatic sequential gearbox struck the 210 on the parade lap at Hockenheim, and 211 was called back into action but failed to finish owing to a fuel pressure fault. 

Chassis 211 was back in action at Hungary, and took the win. It would prove to be the only Ferrari aboard which Schumacher won the Monaco Grand Prix and Drivers’ Championship in the same season.

It’s the most sought-after of all F2001s, and was recently subject to a major overhaul by the Factory in 2025.