A Ferrari Formula One car raced by Michael Schumacher is currently for sale through DuPont Registry. The asking price? A cool $4.9 million. It’s not one of the cars with which Schumacher won his five championships with the Scuderia, but it’s still an impressive piece of racing history.
This Ferrari F300 was Schumacher’s ride during the 1998 season, when the German driver and Italian team lost the Drivers’ and Constructors’ titles to Mika Hakkinen and McLaren, respectively, after a tough battle. This was also the V-10 era in F1, when cars produced some of the best sounds in the history of the sport.
Schumacher had joined Ferrari for the 1996 season after winning two championships in a row with Benetton. He was tasked with helping to rebuild Ferrari into a championship-winning team. While that goal was still a few years off, there were signs of improvement in 1998.
Ferrari won six grands prix that year, and Schumacher drove this very car (chassis number 189) to second place at the Luxembourg Grand Prix, held at the Nürburgring. The title fight came down to the final round—the 1998 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.
Again driving chassis 189, Schumacher entered the race just four points behind Hakkinen. He got pole position, but stalled on the formation lap, meaning he had to start the race at the back of the grid. Schumacher recovered to third place, but punctured a tire after running over debris, handing Hakkinen the championship.
While still astronomical, the asking price for Ferrari F300 chassis no. 189 is a bit lower than transaction prices for Ferrari F1 cars from Schumacher’s championship-winning years. An F2001 from the 2001 season sold for $7.5 million in 2017, while an F2002 from the following season sold for $5.9 million in 2019.