Schumacher drove only one race for the Jordan team. He was under contract to Mercedes, for whom he competed in the World Sportscar Championship in 1990 and 1991, but was allowed to take part in the Belgian Grand Prix (the 11th race of the 1991 Formula One season) to replace the French driver Bertrand Gachot, who'd been sentenced to 18 months in prison for an aggravated assault that had occurred the previous December. Jordan paid $150,000 for the privilege. (Gachot was released after two months on appeal.)
Mercedes and Jordan had agreed in principle that Schumacher would drive for Jordan for the remainder of the 1991 Formula One season, but following the Belgian Grand Prix (in which he was forced to retire on the first lap by clutch failure) he was engaged by Benetton. Jordan applied for an injunction in the British courts, but lost the case as they had not signed a binding contract.
Schumacher drove five races for Benetton in 1991. He only finished three of them, but still managed to accrue four championship points by finishing fifth, sixth and sixth. He stayed with the team for the next four seasons, winning the drivers' championship in the last two (1994 and 1995), and in 1996 he joined Ferrari for a reported $60 million over two years. The iconic Italian team had last won the Drivers' Championship in 1979 and the Constructors' Championship in 1983, and its cars had been rubbished by drivers and observers including Alain Prost and Eddie Irvine. But the rest is history; Schumacher won the drivers' championship in his fifth season with Ferrari (2000), and in the next four years to boot. He has been credited with single–handedly turning a struggling team into the most successful in Formula One history.
© Haydn Thompson 2022