Symonds explains how Schumacher raised the bar

Pat Symonds has explained how seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher led a new era of Formula 1 drivers, after working with the German at Benetton.

Symonds was Schumacher's race engineer at Benetton, when the German driver won his first two F1 titles in 1994 and 1995.

Schumacher's work ethic and approach to racing weekends was something the Formula 1 world had never seen before, according to Symonds.

Speaking at the Autosport International Show, the former race engineer believes Schumacher created a new approach to Formula 1, something that would eventually be imitated by other drivers.

"Michael really was different, it was to do with was the work ethic and the attention to detail," Symonds explained. "The incremental improvements that really brought everything together were staggering. He set new standards in fitness, his attention to detail and the intelligence he applied to things.

"If you remember in those days we used to practice on Friday and Saturday, and we had qualifying Friday and Saturday as well. But more importantly, on Sunday morning, we had a short half-hour session; the warm-up.

"I used to really work with him on the car, all the way through to the end of Saturday qualifying. We were always just trying to improve the car, improve the car. Then on Sunday, we'd say, 'that's what we've got, that's as good as we can make it, now it's down to you to spend half-an-hour just figuring out how to get the best of it'.

"So he'd go into the race knowing if he saved his tyres a bit in this corner, he can make them last a bit longer. If he was a bit slower into that corner then he would be quicker coming out of that one which gave him better speed down the straight, all these sort of things.

"It's that level of attention to detail and this search for incremental performance that we'd never seen in Formula 1 before. There might have been a few, like Alain Prost, who had it quite naturally, but Michael, it was a work ethic that's brought him there."