Michael Schumacher suffered a broken leg after an unfortunate brake failure at the 1999 British Grand Prix.
At the time, it looked as though he had a good chance of winning an incredible first drivers’ championship with Ferrari.
However, after his opening lap shunt at the British Grand Prix, he would go on to miss the following six races. His Formula 1 season was effectively over.
Teammate Eddie Irvine went on to miss out on the title by just two points, suggesting that the German would have been right in the fight for top honours.
Only one Ferrari driver beat Schumacher, and it was the Irishman who lined up alongside him for four seasons before their dominance began.
Schumacher nearly denied Irvine the title at the season finale, which was his second race after returning from a broken leg. He finished second in both events after his comeback, but his replacement had done a good job, too.
READ MORE: How Michael Schumacher won the fastest race in the history of Formula 1 at Ferrari’s home track
Photo by Andreas Rentz/Bongarts/Getty ImagesMika Salo once replaced Michael Schumacher at Ferrari but never won an F1 race
The man drafted in as Schumacher’s replacement for six races during the 1999 season was a 33-year-old with some solid experience.
Mika Salo stepped up and showed strong pace almost immediately. A ninth in his first outing in Austria saw him come close to scoring points, but his second race made a far greater impact.
After fellow countryman Mika Hakkinen retired from the German Grand Prix, Salo found himself out front with a commanding lead. Unfortunately, team orders dictated that he move over for Irvine.
On the podium, he was handed the first-place trophy by his teammate as a showing of gratitude for his kind gesture. He would return to the rostrum three races later at Monza with a third place in front of Ferrari’s adoring Tifosi.
They would be the only two points finishes of his time with the team, but they ended up being critical to ending a 16-year title drought. The 10 points he contributed helped them to pip McLaren to the constructors’ title by four points.
Speaking about the German Grand Prix with the F1 website in 2018, he revealed how it wasn’t too ‘frustrating’ to let go of such an opportunity, even though he knew that it might never arise again.
“People say it must have been frustrating for me, but I didn’t think of it that way at that time,” he said. “I just thought that’s my job, so it’s okay. That’s how it was. It’s a team sport.
“And I sacrificed some other races also for Eddie and the team, like Spa. I could have been also on the podium there easily, but I had to do a little bit of a lift off there. So I took some bullets there, too.”
What happened to Mika Salo after his 1999 Ferrari spell?
Salo would once more find a full-time drive for 2000, joining Sauber and finishing 11th in the standings with a best finish of fifth.
He left them to join Toyota’s new efforts for 2002, skipping the 2001 season. He scored points on debut for them in Australia, but it was all downhill from there.
At the end of the campaign, he officially announced his retirement from Formula 1 before going on to focus on endurance racing.
He came first in his class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice in 2008 and 2009, but his racing career faded away soon after.
From 2011 onwards, he competed in no more than 10 racing events annually, stopping entirely in 2016. In 2020, he completed a one-off race in the Super Taikyu category, but hasn’t raced competitively since.