After the defeat in the 1997 Formula 1 championship with the epilogue in Jerez which gave the victory to Jacques Villeneuve with Williams, Ferrari faced the 1998 season with a new car derived from the previous year. The 1998 F300 proved to be very competitive and Michael Schumacher took victory in six Grand Prix. This did not help to bring the drivers title to Maranello, which had been missing since 1979. The victory went to Mika Hakkinen with McLaren-Mercedes.