While McLaren is overall worse than their budget would suggest, Sauber are performing well above their financial situation. This, no doubt, is helped by the abundance of Ferrari technology aboard the C23. The only laps Ferrari lost were when Schumacher collided with Juan Pablo Montoya in Monaco. This leaves Rubens Barrichello as the only driver to complete every lap this season.

While the main focus at the moment is on all the bickering about Jenson Button, Michael Schumacher can write history in several ways this weekend. The German currently ties his personal records of most wins in a season (11), most consecutive victories (6) and consecutive races led (12). While only the first is an actual record, the others show that the six time World Champion is very much at the height of his power and ever hungry for more.

This Week in History

On 15 August 1993 Damon Hill scored his first victory. The Briton had been promoted from Brabham driver and Williams test driver to the full time number two driver when Nigel Mansell opted to move to America rather than defend his title with Alain Prost as his teammate. While the Williams was as dominant as it had been in 1992, Hill had constantly been in the shadow of his much more experienced teammate. On the occasions that Prost hadn't won, it was Ayrton Senna in the McLaren-Ford who had taken the honours, leaving Hill rather frustrated without wins in a very strong car.

Friday qualifying at the Hungaroring continued in the same vein as the rest of the season. Alain Prost completely dominated and set a time over half a second quicker than number two Michael Schumacher, who stayed narrowly ahead of Damon Hill. Behind the two Williams and Benetton the gap was huge. Fourth-placed Riccardo Patrese, in the second Benetton, was no less than 2.2 seconds behind Prost, with Ayrton Senna in the first McLaren fifth another half a second back. The surprising number six was Pierluigi Martini in the Minardi, who was almost a full second behind Senna and a massive 3.6 behind Prost.

The next day Damon Hill made a giant leap forward in time, but was still two tenths short of his teammate, making it a Williams front row, followed by Schumacher, Senna, Patrese and Ferrari driver Gerhard Berger.

During the warm-up on Sunday morning, problems with the clutch became apparent for Alain Prost. Until race time the team were frantically working to resolve the problem, but as the drivers started the warm-up lap before the race, Prost stalled and was forced to start from the back of the grid. Of course, this left Hill alone on the front row as the race got underway and the Briton immediately made the best of it. The number 0 driver - number 1 was unavailable as the rules stated that this was the number to be carried by the World Champion, who in this case wasn't taking part in the championship - opened a gap of 1.7 seconds to Ayrton Senna in the first lap around the very hot Hungaroring circuit. Behind Senna, Michael Schumacher spun during the opening lap, but quickly regained himself and closed in behind Berger and Patrese.

In the first phase of the race Hill took full profit of the power of his car and only Senna was able to push hard enough to stay even remotely close. However, after ten laps the Brazilian was 9.4 seconds behind. Gerhard Berger in the Ferrari was clearly holding up the rest of the pack behind Senna. The gap between the Austrian and the McLaren in front of him had increased to 15 seconds, while no less than four cars were less than two seconds behind him. In the mean time Alain Prost had fought his way up to 13th place.

A lap later, Senna's engine started to act up and the Brazilian started losing more and more ground to Hill until he was forced to retire in lap 18. This left Hill with a massive lead of over 40 seconds. Berger was still leading the following group, with Schumacher and Patrese right on his tail. The surprising number five was Alain Prost, who was driving a fantastic race around the tight and twisty circuit. The Frenchman was just two seconds behind the man in front of him. At this time the first round of pitstops was starting and that's where Prost's march up the field ended. While pitting it was discovered that the mounting of his rearing was about to break, resulting in a nine-minute pitstop.

When Hill stopped after 24 laps, he returned with a 24-second lead over Schumacher and barring incidents the race was already in the bag. Behind the Briton everybody seemed to try and make things as comfortable as possible for the leader. Jean Alesi tangled with Christian Fittipaldi and both drivers retired, while the drivers closest to Hill hadn't stopped yet. Shortly after Schumacher's stop on lap 25, the German's engine gave way, so when Patrese finally pitted another three laps later, the Italian was able to keep second place, albeit 53 seconds behind Hill.