In this week's column, Ann Bradshaw pays tribute - although for very different reasons - to the only two World Champions that raced in 2003: to Michael Schumacher for clinching a record-breaking sixth World Championship; and to Jacques Villeneuve after the Canadian decided to pull out of the Japanese Grand Prix last Sunday

Love him or hate him, you have to admit that Michael Schumacher has done a magnificent job not only this year but also in the thirteen and a half years he has been in Formula One. There is not much left for him to achieve. He is the only driver to win six World Championships, beating the record set by five times winner Juan Manuel Fangio set way back in 1957. He has won 70 races with Alain Prost second in this league table with just 51. He has now scored 1,038 points and again Prost is in second with 798.5. He has had 56 fastest laps compared to Prost's 41. He won 11 races in the 2002 season breaking the record previously held by both him and Nigel Mansell of nine wins.

He says he is not retiring yet so I suppose he still wants to hold the record for the most poles in a career and a season - he is currently on 55 with Ayrton Senna on 65 and while he was on pole 11 times in 2001 in 1992 Nigel Mansell took 14 poles. When you consider that Suzuka was his 194th race you realise he has plenty of time left as he is only seventh in this table headed by Riccardo Patrese on 256 starts.

While I am singing his praises I should however mention some records he will never break. Mario Andretti, Giuseppe Farina, Carlos Reutemann and Jacques Villeneuve all took pole position at their very first Grand Prix. It took Michael 41 attempts. Giancarlo Baghetti, Farina and John Parsons also won their first Grand Prix and for Michael it was number 18 before he was on the top step of the podium. Of the current Grand Prix drivers the one to win the quickest is Jacques Villeneuve as it was at his fourth attempt.

He is certainly a great driver but also one of the luckiest. When he ran into the back of Takuma Sato and broke his nose cone he did it at the end of the lap so just had to detour into the pits for a new one and lost the minimum amount of time. Then when he was attempting to pass Cristiano da Matta and was hit from behind by his brother, Ralf, why was his tyre not punctured or his suspension broken. Despite all this he managed to finish eighth and claim the one point he needed to beat Kimi Raikkonen to the title.

He was obviously very emotional when he went on television not long after the end of the race and quite rightly said it had not sunk in yet. I am sure when he got back to see his team it would start to do just that. I am also sure that his wife would not get the telling off she was expecting. When interviewed directly after the race she was already wearing one of his famous red caps but this one was proclaiming him as a six times World Champion. She said he did not know these had been made and would be angry with them for doing it.

For once I think Corinna had misjudged her husband. The euphoria he was feeling would definitely not be blighted by his manager Willi Weber taking it for granted that his boy was going to do the deed. Also I am sure that if these had been on sale in the Suzuka shops after the race the profit from these sales would make sure Michael was well on his way to affording his second house in Switzerland - the first was bought solely from the profits from his hat sales.

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With the earlier mention of Jacques I feel I must now leave the career of Michael Schumacher to be discussed by other columnists and go to what happened in the BAR team over the last week. While I am sure the Japanese fans were delighted to see their hero from 2002, Takuma Sato, back behind the wheel of a Formula One car, I was disappointed that Jacques, who I liked as a person and believed was a worthy World Champion, may have finished his career so ignominiously. There is no doubt the writing was on the wall for Jacques at BAR once the management change happened. It was unlikely a team that by its own admission has been under-performing could afford to keep such an expensive driver past the end of his current contract.

However, it is sad when relationships break down so badly that he does not even do the final race of the season. It was a shame we didn't get to hear from his own mouth what his thoughts were over the affair but it was interesting to hear them from his close friend and now former race engineer, Jock Clear. Jock explained: "He didn't feel particularly motivated, he feels let down and, rightly or wrongly, that is how he feels at the moment. All the time the argument was going on about whether he would or would not stay he always still felt there was a chance and this was his team and it was his family. That is literally what he called it, he called it his family. He said to me this week it is no longer his family and he didn't feel he could do it justice this weekend. Which is a fair comment."

It was also interesting to hear his further comment to the interviewer asking him if he considered Button/Sato as not being as strong a line-up as Button/Villeneuve. In hindsight this was even more interesting. This was in view of the fact that Jenson Button and Takuma Sato did a great job for the team in finishing fourth and sixth and managed to put BAR fifth in the Constructors' Championship, which will bring some much needed extra money to the team.

Jock's answer was: "That we will have to see. If I am brutally honest at the level where we are at the moment at BAR we actually are not able to offer Jacques what he needs. Whether he is a championship winning driver these days or not is in debate. The fact is having been a World Champion at this level and having won the Indy 500 I don't think we can offer him the kind of motivation that he needs to get the best out of himself. If he were offered a drive in a Williams, or McLaren or Ferrari in the future then his motivation would be all consuming and you would see him back at the level of motivation he was in 1997. We would then see whether he has got the talent to deliver what he delivered in '97."

In my mind Jacques knew exactly what he was doing when he left WilliamsF1 for BAR. He had the chance to stay but went from one of the most successful teams in the sport to a new untried one for an awful lot of money. There were always going to be problems. It was a long time since a new team had arrived and taken the Formula One world by storm. The team arrived in a fanfare of publicity and, in my mind, some of the statements issued about how they were going to tackle the job in hand were slightly naive. F1 is tough and with the sort of rewards on offer there is no way the other teams are going to give the new boys a helping hand. This is not like going to a new school for the first time and finding one of the other pupils willing to show you the ropes. However nice the likes of Sir Frank Williams, Ron Dennis, Jean Todt may seem on the outside, they are ruthless team owners whose first duty is to their own team and its sponsors.

I have been disappointed to hear over the past few years about how difficult he has become in BAR. His reply to most requests outside the car seems to be no and I find it strange someone who has raced in the States does not understand about PR and looking after the sponsors. When I worked with him in 1996 he was not the easiest driver I have ever had to deal with but I soon worked out that most people will respond to good old fashioned bribery. Once out of the car he liked nothing better than a bar of chocolate and a glass of ice cold milk.

When I approached him for his comments and to discuss upcoming interviews I always had these with me, so he was in a mellow mood as I explained to him what I wanted. I also liked his sense of humour and the way him and Damon were close friends as well as teammates despite their own personal championship battle in 1996. At that last race in Suzuka they had a lot of fun. While their respective followers were quite tense, the laughter coming from the debriefing room was genuine. Jacques said he was going to miss Damon and he was one of the first to congratulate him when he won. They partied the night away after the race and this was the time when Jacques, Mika Salo and David Coulthard decided to shave their heads before hitting the Log Cabin to party the night away.

Jacques was also very generous. He always made sure his mechanics were looked after. In Canada he spent a fortune at a Montreal restaurant taking the whole team out to dinner and making sure the bar never ran dry. He also signed a deal that year with Disney for them to use his image. The deal was done with a silver Mickey Mouse pen. He gave me that and I treasure it to this day. I do hope he comes back and we see the touch of brilliance we saw when he overtook Michael in Estoril at a part of the track where it was not supposed to be possible. However, I hate to think that he only drives ten/tenths when he feels he can win a championship. The boys at BAR work just as hard as the boys in the four teams that finished ahead of them in the Constructors' Championship and so they deserve Jacques giving them all his efforts.

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I now want to move to a totally different subject and say how happy I was to receive an e-mail from one of Atlas F1's subscribers. Martin Mercorelli may be a bit surprised to learn I was happy with his e-mail as I got a ticking off from him. The reason I was happy was because he assured me that there were not empty grandstands in Indianapolis and that the crowd of 125,000 would most likely be the largest of the year. He assured me that people travel thousands of miles to see the event and that it is a success.

I stand corrected and having now read a column by one of my favourite Formula One reporters, Nigel Roebuck, know that the crowd was large and enthusiastic. I understand that the pitlane walkabout for the general public, not just the pampered guests, was brought back and that the fans got to see the cars and drivers again. I take on board Martin's comment that to be a success the IMS does not have to attract ten times the average F1 crowd. I suppose I just see the way NASCAR and the Indy 500 attract so many fans and I would love to think F1 can do the same. Anyway Martin keep up the good work and definitely keep me honest.

Well that is all for my race comments for 2003. I now need to start writing my season review for you all. We had a great year and so I need to start thinking back to those days in Melbourne when we thought 2003 would be just a reply of 2002. How wrong we were.

About the author:
Ann Bradshaw - Annie - began her motor racing career as a teenager, helping out her brother in local rally races in England, where she grew up. In the 1970s she organised motor racing events in England, and was later the press officer for the RAC MSA - the motorsport governing body in Britain. In mid 1980s, she became press officer to team Lotus, where she worked with Ayrton Senna. Shortly after, she moved to the Williams team and was working there for several years, when once again she found herself working with Senna. She worked with Damon Hill after the Brazilian's death, and moved with the British Champion to Arrows. She also worked with the Panoz team in the United States, before becoming a freelance press officer, now working with Compaq and BAR among others. Annie joined Atlas F1 as a regular columnist in April 2002.