Sweet home coming for Schumacher brothers

On a day to delight one side of the family and disappoint the other, Schumacher led his younger brother Ralf for most of the race until the Williams driver was forced to make a third pit stop three laps from the end.

The lost time pushed Ralf back to third, behind his Colombian team mate Juan Pablo Montoya who finished 10.5 seconds behind the triumphant Ferrari.

It was the German’s ninth win in 12 races, equalling the record for a single season that he already holds jointly with Britain’s former champion Nigel Mansell, and his third victory in a row.

Schumacher equalled the late Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio’s record of five titles at the last race in France and now has 106 points out of a maximum 120. Nearest rival, Montoya, is 66 behind.

With five races remaining, there can be little doubt that the German is not through with winning yet even though the team’s focus is switching to help team mate Rubens Barrichello finish as overall runner-up.

Barrichello, once again attracting all the bad luck in the Ferrari team, was fourth ahead of McLaren’s David Coulthard and Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld — the third German in the points.

The Brazilian started on the second row — but only just, after his race car developed a gearbox problem as he took his place on the grid.

Barrichello ran back to the garage and jumped in the spare, leaving the pit lane just 15 seconds before the deadline as his mechanics wheeled the other car away.

Running comfortably in third place, he then lost ground with a long second pitstop of 21.2 seconds due to a refuelling problem.

The highlight of the race, for the German fans in the estimated 120,000 crowd, was undoubtedly the sight of Schumacher winning at Hockenheim for the first time in a Ferrari and only the second time in his career. (Reuters)