Ralf Schumacher  Born: 30.06.75  Birthplace:Huerth, Germany  Team: Toyota  2006 Car Number: 7  Last Season: Sixth  GP Pedigree (After Brazilian GP)  Starts: 161  Victories: 6  Poles: 5  Fastest Laps: 8  Points: 320  GP Debut: 1997, Australian GP, Jordan, retired   Five-year Stats

As the younger brother of multiple championship winner Michael Schumacher, Ralf has had a lot to live up to, but he's now established himself in his own right.

He has followed an almost identical path to his brother within motorsport, through karts, F3 and then breaking in to F1 with the Jordan team in 1997.

A podium place arrived in only his third race (Buenos Aires) but his race was marred by a collision which took out team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella on lap 24.

In fact he had five further accidents, including one with his brother, that season although when his impetuosity did not get the better of him he did well with six points finishes.

The first half of the 1998 season was dreadful for Jordan with the car either unreliable or uncompetitive - coupled with some poor performances from Ralf.

However, as the season progressed, Jordan's and Ralf's performances progressed culminating in top six finishes.

At Spa, Ralf finished second behind team-mate Damon Hill although team orders had instructed him not to challenge for the lead.

He followed that up with a solid third at Monza a fortnight later.

Unhappiness at the team orders at Spa, as well as two retirements towards the end of the 1998 season, caused Ralf to look for another team.

After much wrangling, he managed to extricate himself from his Jordan contract and secure a move to Williams for 1999.

He immediately began to repay his new team with some excellent drives in the early half of season, including two podium spots at Melbourne and Silverstone.

In the European GP he was desperately unlucky not to take his first GP win.

2000 brought a new Williams team-mate for Ralf, rookie Jenson Button, and the German found himself outqualified by the youngster on more than one occasion.

Despite this, Ralf had a reasonable season, finishing 'best of the rest' in the drivers' championship, in fifth behind the Ferrari and McLaren drivers.

Ralf was keen to keep his 2000 team-mate a bit longer, but had to contend with Juan-Pablo Montoya from 2001 onwards.

Ralf started the new season well with a win in San Marino after which his canny manager Willi Weber negotiated an extension to his contract.

But the second half of the year proved frustrating as Ralf fell into the rut of the previous season and started to get outqualified at circuits where Montoya was driving for the first time.

However, he had stepped firmly out of his brother's shadow and was a different driver to the one who found getting off the line so difficult in 1998.

He scored three wins at Imola, Montreal and Hockenheim - something his brother had yet to achieve - and finished the season fourth overall with 49 points.

In 2002 Ralf found it more difficult to keep up with Montoya, especially when JPM put together a run of five successive pole positions.

Unlike previous years, though, he came back strongly - a little too strongly in races where it seemed the two Williams drivers were involved in their own personal battle.

Ralf's win in Sepang was the team's only race victory of the year, but it came courtesy of a first-corner accident between Michael and JPM.

For the first time at Williams he had been outscored by a team-mate, finishing fourth with 42 points.

Shock of the year came in Austria where Ralf turned up with blond hair - something he explained away as "a very bad mistake" by a hapless hairdresser.

Although it ended in disappointment, the 2003 season was far more profitable affair for Ralf.

Having steadily accumulated points in the early half of the campaign in a struggling car, the FW25 was a class apart in mid-season and Ralf took full advantage, winning back-to-back races at Nurburgring and Magny-Cours.

Suddenly Ralf had emerged as a leading contender to win the world championship but it was not to be.

A high-speed accident in testing ruled him out of grands prix at a crucial stage and a crash at his comeback race, the US GP, ended his title aspirations.

2004 was to prove even more disappointing.

Williams were woefully off the pace and Ralf only made any sort of impression other than with a series of crashes which earned him the Planet-F1 title of Ralf Shuntmaker.

But his crash at the US GP was no laughing matter.

Slamming into the wall at an estimated 200mph, the accident left the Williams a wreck and Ralf with a cracked spine.

The result was that the German was ruled out of most of the second half of the season until finally making his comeback at the Chinese GP.

It rather summed up Ralf's season that he was promptly forced out of the race when David Coulthard crashed into him.

Yet it was far from doom and gloom for Ralf at the end of 2004.

A move to Toyota had long been mooted and it was finally confirmed in September that he had indeed joined the Cologne-based outfit, where he would partner Jarno Trulli.

And although his team-mate got the better results in both qualifying and the races, it was Ralf who produced the more consistent season, finishing 14 of the 19 grands prix in the points, including third-placed finishes in Hungary and China.

The latter podium achievement was enough to ensure Ralf finished the year sixth in the drivers’ standings, two points ahead of his team-mate.

This year, Ralf’s second in his three-year deal with Toyota, he won’t want to wait until the end of the year to get the better of his team-mate.

And with Trulli having bagged Toyota’s first podium result, Ralf will be keen to hand the team its first win.

Formula One Career:

2006:	GP with Toyota.
2005:	GP with Toyota (58pts - sixth in championship).
2004:	GP with Williams - (24pts - equal ninth in championship).
2003:	GP with Williams - victory in Europe and France (58 pts - fifth in championship).
2002:	GP with Williams - victory in Malaysia (42 pts - fourth in championship).
2001:	GP with Williams - victory in San Marino, Canada and Germany (49 pts - fourth in championship).
2000:	GP with Williams - (24pts - 5th in championship).
1999:	GP with Williams - (35pts - 6th in championship).
1998:	GP with Jordan – (14pts – 10th in championship).
1997:	GP with Jordan (0pts).

Background:

1996:	Front runner in Nippon F3000 Championship, also a competitor in Japanese GT
1995:	Runner-up in German F3 Championship won World F3 Final in Macau
1994:	Third overall in German F3
1993:	German Junior Formula and F3
1991-92:	Karting