INDIANAPOLIS -- By this time a year ago, Michael Schumacher had easily wrapped up his fifth World Championship. The world's highest-paid race car driver might clinch a record sixth F1 driver's title if things go his way in Sunday's U.S. Grand Prix.

However, it's clear that Schumacher has not had an easy run this year, and Juan Pablo Montoya or Kimi Raikkonen could still snatch the title from him.

Last year, Schumacher -- whose estimated yearly earnings are $50 million -- won a record 11 Grands Prix. This season he has "only" five victories. Is Schumi losing his touch? No way. Anybody who discounts Schumacher does so at his peril.

"He's a phenomenally competitive bloke; phenomenally hungry," said Australian Mark Webber, who drives for Jaguar. "You could nearly put it on the excessiveness of greedy. He loves his driving. Look at his stats -- they are frightening. He has just made things happen. It is like Michael Jordan at the Chicago Bulls. Everyone wants to be with him. He is a different animal."

Let's look at those frightening stats: Five World Championships (tying a record set by the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio). A record 69 wins (Alain Prost is second with 51 wins). A record 55 fastest race laps (Prost is second with 41 laps). A record 1,027 career points earned (Prost is second with 798.5 points). About the only record Schumacher doesn't hold at the moment is pole positions, where he has 55 and trails Ayrton Senna's 65.

But records and statistics don't interest Schumacher in the least. Maybe, he mused after topping Prost's 51 career wins, once he has retired he'll sit on the couch with a beer and a cigar and reflect on what he has achieved. But for now, numbers mean nothing to the German star.

	Michael Schumacher's steely gaze never wavers when he's in uniform and ready to race.

Besides, like many drivers, Schumacher has little interest in the history of the sport while he's still active.

If he does indeed win a sixth World Championship, will he relax or immediately start focusing on a seventh title?

"I'm still thinking about the sixth one," he said. "And that's the main focus I'm having. I think it will be a difficult thing to achieve. For me, since 2000 when I won the championship for Ferrari, that was the main target, and everything since then is sort of pleasure. As long as I have fun and I feel I have that for many more years, then whatever comes is great."

Schumacher drives for the pure pleasure of pushing a car to the limit, of pushing it to an area where perhaps only one or two other people in the world would ever reach.

The phenomenal thing about Schumacher is that he has maintained this intensity for 12 years. In 193 Grand Prix starts, there have been only two races when Schumacher was visibly off his game -- the Italian and U.S. Grands Prix just after the Sept. 11, 2001, tragedies when he admitted he simply could not concentrate on driving flat out.

His dedication has set new levels.

"The guy is special," Webber said. "He changed a lot of things forever in the sport -- strategy, his fitness, a lot of things. He came in and woke everybody up and caught them with their pants down. It took people two years to react to some of that stuff."

If he is not at a test session, Schumacher is constantly on the telephone checking the progress of the car. He often calls Ferrari's technical director, Ross Brawn, or one of the other engineers back at the factory to discuss finer points of suspension settings or some other minute detail.

And when it comes to physical training, he pushes himself to the point of collapse and then uses that as a starting point for his next grueling workout.

	“	We won't know how much we miss him until he is gone. When he leaves us there will be a big hole to fill. ”
		— Jaguar driver Mark Webber

Schumacher has set the standard in Grand Prix racing for the last decade. About the only two drivers in that time to show they could measure up with Schumacher have been Mika Hakkinen and Jacques Villeneuve, but that was only for a short couple of seasons when they had superior machinery and supreme confidence.

The main reason the competition is closer to Schumacher and Ferrari this year are that McLaren Mercedes and Williams BMW each made massive technical leaps while Ferrari was too conservative with its 2003 car design. Plus, the Michelin tires used by those teams have often had the edge over the Bridgestones used by Ferrari.

Why should fans buy a ticket this weekend and travel to Indianapolis to watch Michael Schumacher? It's simple: They'll witness a legend. In any sport, would you pass up a chance to tell your grandchildren that you saw a legend in action?

If you had had the chance, would you have gone to see Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Jim Clark, Stirling Moss or Juan Manuel Fangio race?

If you had had the chance, would you have gone to see other sporting legends such as Babe Ruth, Joe Montana, Pele or Joe DiMaggio compete? What about Tiger Woods right now?

It's a question that should have an easy answer for any true fan of sport. You go see legends while you can.

Even one of Schumacher's known enemies won't deny his talent on the track.

	Schumacher has seen more checkered flags in his Grand Prix career than any other driver.

"He is very, very good," Villeneuve said. "He has won five World Championships. He is quick, but everybody has their positives and negatives."

Villeneuve has never had much respect for Schumacher ever since their controversial clash in the title-deciding race in 1997, when Schumacher tried to ram Villeneuve off the track. But he does respect what Schumacher has achieved.

Is Schumacher the best ever? The debate is interesting but as always, it's impossible to compare drivers from different decades. We can't say for sure how Schumacher would have done if he had gone wheel-to-wheel with Fangio in the 1950s or Jim Clark in the 1960s.

If there is one unfortunate aspect to Schumacher's career it's that he's never had an equal to compete against. What sort of records would Senna and Prost have set if they had not spent much of their careers battling each other and taking statistics from each other?

Schumacher had just matured into the driver that he is today when Senna hit the wall and died at Imola on May 1, 1994. Senna was at his peak then, and fans never got to see what would have been a classic era of Schumacher-Senna duels.

"People say that Senna would have seen Schumacher off, but you just don't know," Webber said.

Schumacher admits in the aftermath of the dreadful 1994 San Marino Grand Prix weekend, when both Senna and Roland Ratzenberger lost their lives, he wasn't thinking that one day he would eclipse Senna's records.

"In terms of racing," Schumacher said, "this has obviously been one of the worst days in my life because I have never been confronted with death in this sport I love. It was a big shock, and I think it will be pretty natural that if you think of not being sure whether you want to continue ... that you don't have any imagination for what might happen in the future."

Drivers like Schumacher only come along perhaps once a decade, if not longer. The three greatest F1 drivers in the last 23 years have been Prost (1980-1993), Senna (1984-1994) and Michael Schumacher (1991-?).

Knowing history, we understand that there is a driver out there better than Schumacher, but that driver may not even be born yet. While it seems impossible that Schumacher's records will be beaten, one day they likely will be. After all, Jackie Stewart's 27 victories seemed unbeatable at one time, but Prost went on to win 51.

And then Prost's record seemed insurmountable.

Is the next Schumacher already in F1? Montoya, Fernando Alonso and Raikkonen all have the look of future World Champions. But are they future Schumachers, Sennas, Prosts, Stewarts, Clarks or Fangios? Only time will tell.

"We won't know how much we miss him until he is gone," Webber said of Schumacher. "When he leaves us there will be a big hole to fill."

Dan Knutson covers Formula One for National Speed Sport News and ESPN.com.