paul
Team Owner
http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines02/0.../09/s10466.html
Nigel Mansell hailed Ferrari as the "greatest team in history" as Michael Schumacher shattered yet another record with victory in Belgium on Sunday.
The 1992 champion was in Spa to see the German score his 10th victory of the season and go one better than the record the pair had shared for eight years.
"It was pretty obvious that Michael was going to break our record but I wanted to wish him good luck," said Mansell.
Mansell won nine races on his way to his only world championship, but Schumacher has matched it on three occasions: 1994, 2000 and 2001.
While Mansell said Schumacher's pre-eminence was open to debate, Ferrari's superiority in the history books was not.
"Michael is one of the best drivers ever and is possibly the greatest, but he has got around him the greatest team there has ever been in the history of Formula One."
Schumacher won the Belgian Grand Prix by a little under two seconds, but had throttled back from a 25 second lead as Ferrari recorded yet another one-two finish.
The team reached a series of landmarks with this triumph: it was their 50th consecutive podium finish, proving they have the reliability to match the speed, as they have been in the top three for every race since the Malaysian Grand Prix at the end of 1999.
Mansell, who raced for two years at Ferrari before returning to Williams to win the world title, added: "If I was racing in F1 now I would want to be in the other Ferrari.
"In my day at Ferrari things were different. When I was there we had 200 people in the race department, now there's more like 800. There is so much stability at the team now and that's the big difference."
Sunday's result was also Schumacher's sixth victory on his favourite track, beating a record he shared with Ayrton Senna. He started his weekend with, surprisingly, his first pole position in 12 visits to Spa.
Schumacher and Mansell met on the grid before the start of the race.
Schumacher said: "Nigel shared a few things, but we didn't talk about the record much but he wished me luck which I thought was really nice of him."
Schumacher also raised his points total to 122, one less than his record last season with three races remaining.
While their rivals were expected to have made inroads on Ferrari's advantage by this stage of the season, in fact, Spa was one of their most dominant displays yet.
Schumacher's fastest lap in the race was one second quicker than Barrichello's and 2.1s clear of the speediest non-Ferrari car, Juan Pablo Montoya's Williams.
Nigel Mansell hailed Ferrari as the "greatest team in history" as Michael Schumacher shattered yet another record with victory in Belgium on Sunday.
The 1992 champion was in Spa to see the German score his 10th victory of the season and go one better than the record the pair had shared for eight years.
"It was pretty obvious that Michael was going to break our record but I wanted to wish him good luck," said Mansell.
Mansell won nine races on his way to his only world championship, but Schumacher has matched it on three occasions: 1994, 2000 and 2001.
While Mansell said Schumacher's pre-eminence was open to debate, Ferrari's superiority in the history books was not.
"Michael is one of the best drivers ever and is possibly the greatest, but he has got around him the greatest team there has ever been in the history of Formula One."
Schumacher won the Belgian Grand Prix by a little under two seconds, but had throttled back from a 25 second lead as Ferrari recorded yet another one-two finish.
The team reached a series of landmarks with this triumph: it was their 50th consecutive podium finish, proving they have the reliability to match the speed, as they have been in the top three for every race since the Malaysian Grand Prix at the end of 1999.
Mansell, who raced for two years at Ferrari before returning to Williams to win the world title, added: "If I was racing in F1 now I would want to be in the other Ferrari.
"In my day at Ferrari things were different. When I was there we had 200 people in the race department, now there's more like 800. There is so much stability at the team now and that's the big difference."
Sunday's result was also Schumacher's sixth victory on his favourite track, beating a record he shared with Ayrton Senna. He started his weekend with, surprisingly, his first pole position in 12 visits to Spa.
Schumacher and Mansell met on the grid before the start of the race.
Schumacher said: "Nigel shared a few things, but we didn't talk about the record much but he wished me luck which I thought was really nice of him."
Schumacher also raised his points total to 122, one less than his record last season with three races remaining.
While their rivals were expected to have made inroads on Ferrari's advantage by this stage of the season, in fact, Spa was one of their most dominant displays yet.
Schumacher's fastest lap in the race was one second quicker than Barrichello's and 2.1s clear of the speediest non-Ferrari car, Juan Pablo Montoya's Williams.