Michael Schumacher, who's won 90 races duing his his illustrious career, is retiring after the 2006 F-1 season. (Patrick Hertzog/Getty Images)

One of the most dominant figures in pro sports has called it a career.

On Sunday, moments after racing to victory at the Italian Grand Prix, German driver Michael Schumacher announced he would retire from auto racing at the conclusion of this year's Formula One season.

Schumacher, 37, trails reigning F1 champion Fernando Alonso of Spain in the standings by a meagre two points with three races left and would love nothing more than win an eighth world title before walking away from a sport he has dominated for more than decade.

Alongside David Beckham and Tiger Woods, Schumacher is the most recognizable athlete on the planet. The Ferrari legend has re-written the Formula One record books in much the same fashion that Wayne Gretzky did, winning races with equal parts skill, cunning and aggression, while cementing his status as the greatest driver in the circuit's history.

Schumacher has thrilled auto racing fans with countless memorable moments during his legendary career. Here are 10 that stand out:

1. Speeding past Prost in the record books

On Sept. 2, 2001, Schumacher won the Belgian Grand Prix to earn his 52nd victory, surpassing French legend Alain Prost's record for career Formula One wins.

Nicknamed "Le Professeur" – The Professor – Prost was a four-time world champion who was considered one of the best drivers of his generation. The McLaren icon dominated the F1 circuit from the mid-1980s to the early-1990s, making Schumacher's record-breaking achievement all the more remarkable.

That Schumacher broke Prost's mark by winning the Belgian Grand Prix was apropos: the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, renowned as one of the most challenging courses in auto racing, was the track where Schumacher competed in his first Formula One race (1991) and earned his first victory (1992).

2. Lucky No. 7

Schumacher began 2004 on an unbelievable tear, winning 12 of the first 13 races on the season (an accident knocked him out of the Monaco Grand Prix). So, it was ironic that a second-place finish at the Belgian Grand Prix was good enough for the German to win an unprecedented seventh world title.

Schumacher finished 3.132 seconds behind winner Kimi Räikkönen of Finland, but still managed to claim a record fifth consecutive world title with four races left in the campaign.

The 2004 campaign marked the single greatest performance by a driver in Formula One history: Schumacher finished with a record 148 points and won 13 races (out of a possible 18), surpassing the previous single-season mark of 11 he set in 2002. He also won a record seven consecutive races.

3. His first world title

Schumacher won his first of seven world titles in 1994 while driving for the Benetton team, but the German claimed the crown in controversial fashion.

Schumacher led Williams driver Damon Hill in the standings by a single point going into the Australian Open, the final race of the season. While leading the race, Schumacher veered off the track and crashed into an outside wall. Schumacher returned to the track at a reduced speed and Hill tried to pass him on the inside just as the Englishman was coming into the sixth corner.

Instead, the two cars collided and both drivers were forced to retire from the race, ensuring the world title for Schumacher. The German driver was vilified in the British press for causing the crash – critics claimed Schumacher, knowing his car was already damaged, intentionally drove back on to the track to try and take Hill out – and the Schumacher-Hill rivalry was born.

4. The beginning of the Ferrari era

After winning two world titles in five years, Michael Schumacher was on top of the auto racing world. Needing a new challenge, he left Benetton in 1996 and signed with Ferrari. The world of Formula One would never be the same.

In hindsight, making the jump to Ferrari proved to be the turning point in Schumacher's career, but at the time it was considered a highly risky move as the Italian team was floundering: no Ferrari driver had won a world title since 1979, the same year the team last won the Constructors' Championship.

In his first season with Ferrari, Schumacher won three races to finish third overall behind Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve and helped Ferrari finish second in the team standings. It was a sign of things to come.

5. The first of many, many, many victories

Schumacher made his Formula One debut in 1991 for Jordan before finishing out the season with the Benetton team. The German started the following season brightly – he finished in the top-four in eight of the first 10 races – before earning his first career victory at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Schumacher started third on the grid but breezed past F1 legends Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna – who both started from the front row – to take the chequered flag. Schumacher followed up with a third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix and placed second in the season ending Australian Grand Prix.

Schumacher finished third in the overall standings that season, just ahead of Senna, a three-time world champion.

Schumacher brought Ferrari back to the winner's circle. (Giuseppe Cacace/Getty Images)

6. The Ferrari drought ends

Schumacher ended more than two decades of hurt for Ferrari in 2000.

When Schumacher left Benneton for Ferrari in 1996, the Italian outfit was struggling and hadn't won a world title since 1979. By signing Schumacher, Ferrari was pinning its hopes on the German to bring an end to the championship drought.

Schumacher piled up victories over the course of his first four seasons with Ferrari but could not deliver a world title – the Italian press tore him to shreds when he let the 1997 world title slip through his hands in the final race of the season (see below).

Finally, in 2000, Schumacher won nice races to claim his third world title and delivered Ferrari its first Constructors' Championship and drivers' title in 21 years.

7. The Villeneuve incident

The 1997 world title came down to the final race of the season at the European Grand Prix with Schumacher enjoying a slender lead in the standings over Jacques Villeneuve. All Schumacher had to do was finish ahead of the Canadian.

On lap 48, Villeneuve attempted to overtake Schumacher as they turned the corner but the German turned in on the Canadian resulting in a collision. Schumacher went off the track and was forced to retire, but Villeneuve continued on (despite damage to his car) and finished third in the race to leapfrog Schumacher in the standings and win the world title.

With the Damon Hill incident from 1994 still fresh in everybody's memory, Schumacher was crucified by the press for trying to knock Villeneuve out of the race. The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, auto racing's world governing body, annulled all of Schumacher's results from that season (meaning he lost his second place finish in the driver standings) after he was judged to have deliberately driven into Villeneuve.

8. No competition

Schumacher's victory at the French Grand Prix title in 2002 was a testament to the German driver's dominance that season.

Schumacher's fourth career win at the Magny-Cours wrapped up another world title for the German with six races remaining in the season, marking the earliest point in the campaign a driver had ever won the crown. Schumacher racked up an amazing 11 victories in 2002 and finished on the podium in all 17 races.

Schumacher also tied another record that season: the world title was his fifth, equalling the mark set by Argentine legend Juan Manuel Fangio in 1957.

9. A final victory at Monza

At the age of 37, Schumacher knew in the back of his mind that the 2006 season would be his last. He fuelled speculation about his retirement at the start of the campaign when he hinted at making an official announcement sometime before the end of the season.

Snapping at the heels of reigning world champion Fernando Alonso in the standings, Schumacher outpaced pole-sitter Kimi Räikkönen to win the Italian Grand Prix. The victory cut Alonso's lead to just two points over the German with three races remaining, giving the German a shot at yet another world title.

Following his fifth career victory at Monza and basking in the adulation of the adoring Ferrari tifosi – fans – Schumacher announced to the world that he would retire from Formula One racing at the end of the season.

It was an emotional scene, but a fitting one – Schumacher made the announcement after staking his claim to an unprecedented eighth world title by winning one of Formula One's most famous races in his adopted homeland. Well, you couldn't write a Hollywood script better than that!

10. Reaching out to tsunami victims

Not all of Schumacher's best moments came on the track. On Jan. 4, 2005, during a televised fundraising gala in his native Germany, Schumacher pledged to donate $10 million US to help victims of Asia's tsunami and earthquake disaster. The tsunami tragedy hit Schumacher personally: a close friend and his two sons, ages five and four, were killed in Thailand.

Parts of south Asia were hit the hardest by the Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami – the disaster believed to have killed between 176,665 and 184,378 people in Asia and Africa, more than half of them on Sumatra. The total number of dead may never be known because of the number of people swept out to sea.

"It's so unfathomable and horrible what happened to so many people," Schumacher said during the telecast. "One cannot simply blind it out. We're suffering with them."