An F1 car piloted to victory by Michael Schumacher at the 2001 Monaco Grand Prix brought an impressive $7,504,000 at a contemporary art auction in New York late last week, held by RM Sotheby's. The 2001 car was offered in a string of Basquiats and Warhols as part of the auction house's Contemporary Art Evening Sale, hailing from the tail end of a fondly remembered era of Formula 1 -- and not just because it was still the age of 900-hp 3.0-liter V10s.

Schumacher drove chassis 211 to his fourth Formula 1 World Championship, which coincided with Ferrari clinching the constructor's championship that very same year. 2001 also marked Schumacher's last victory in Monte Carlo, a race in which Ferrari teammate Rubens Barrichello came in a close second. The seventh race of the season, the Monaco GP was also the fourth victory that season for Schumacher after triumphs at the Australian, Malaysian and Spanish GP events.

"This F2001, then, is a car of tremendous historic importance to the driver, the enthusiast, the grand prix circuit and indeed the brand that is the black Prancing Horse of Maranello," RM Sotheby's said. "After warm-up and qualifying stints at Barcelona, Montreal, the Nurburgring, Magny-Cours, Spa-Francorchamps and Monza, this was very the same chassis driven to victory at both Monaco and the Hungaroring. In this regard, then, it is unequivocally the perfect car, driven by the perfect driver in a perfect performance to achieve the greatest glory imaginable in a driver’s career: victory at the Monaco Grand Prix and therefore the title of Formula 1 World Champion. If ever there was a motor car from the contemporary golden era of performance to own, this is it."

Estimated by RM Sotheby's to bring between $4 million and $5.5 million, the car ended up selling for $2 million above the top estimate. Curiously enough, since this was a high-end art auction, the car was not the top-selling lot of the event: Several paintings brought amounts higher than the Schumi car, with the top sale of the auction being a Francis Bacon painting titled "Three Studies of George Dyer," which ended up changing hands for $38,614,000.

Contemporary paintings are nice and everything, but we're pretty sure we know which piece of contemporary art we'd like in our office here in Detroit.

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