Rubens Barrichello made his Formula One debut before I was even 18 months old, so I won’t even begin to purport knowledge of his career that would make a worthy blog post. However, given he has been ubiquitous during my time as a Formula One fan, it is a saddening sight to see the smiley round-faced Brazilian seemingly forced into retirement. Just this week, it was announced that Bruno Senna would be partnering Pastor Maldonado in the struggling Williams team for 2012. This leaves Barrichello with little option but to call it a day on F1 for good, consigning his name to the annals of the sport’s history.
Barrichello’s legacy speaks tremendously loudly for itself. He holds the distinction of having started more races than any other Formula One driver in the sport’s history, with a staggering 322 Grands Prix under what must be his gargantuan belt. He has 11 race victories to his name, including a handful of standout drives that any champion would have been proud of. He stood on the podium 68 times, secured 14 pole positions, finished 2nd in the World Championship twice... Rubens has done a lot.
But these are all stats, and stats are cold and impassive. Rubens Barrichello is the very opposite of that. Rubens is an emotional chap who seems like one of the nicest guys in sport. In interviews he comes across as happy, charming and interesting. After meaningful victories, Rubens would make no secret of his emotions and would be visibly very tearful on the podium. He really was a very difficult man to dislike. His story is one of determination and frustration, but of joy and bliss.
Having built his career up at the Jordan and Stewart teams, Rubens got his big break in F1 when he transferred to the Ferrari team in 2000 becoming Michael Schumacher’s team-mate. It didn’t take long for Rubens to establish himself as one of the most consistent and reliable number-two drivers in Formula One, perpetually staying close to the front of the pack and capitalising on any race in which Schumacher suffered a misfortune. He earned his first victory at Hockenheim in 2000 after staying firm in wet conditions and ignoring a great deal of chaos on the track (including a disgruntled man breaking onto the circuit). It was an excellent drive, and worthy of making him the first Brazilian Grand Prix winner since Ayrton Senna.
As much as this moment and subsequent victories meant to Rubens, there was always an undercurrent of tragedy to his role at Ferrari. Despite being in the best car in F1, Rubens would be at the mercy of Michael Schumacher as the German went on to dominate the sport for five consecutive years. At no point was Rubens ever given an inch in which he could impose himself as a possible candidate for World Champion.
Ferrari favoured Schumacher, and this really came to a head in the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix when Rubens Barrichello was ordered to relinquish his lead of the race to Schumacher on the final lap. On the podium, Schumacher pushed Barrichello onto the top step and awarded him the first place trophy, but this would have done little to comfort Rubens, who from then on was not only aware of his standing in the team, but had become complicit with it. The move was heavily condemned by the world of F1, and ‘team orders’ were banned as a result.
Whether or not Rubens Barrichello would’ve been a champion without the obstacle of Schumacher is debatable. Certainly there were flashes of brilliance in his driving. One of his most incredible victories was in the 2003 British Grand Prix. Barrichello pulled off a number of extraordinary overtakes and took control of race rife with bedlam (including another disgruntled man breaking onto the circuit) to drag home a truly classic Grand Prix win. Performances of that kind may have been few and far between for Rubens, but perhaps without the stifling factor of Michael Schumacher in his midst, we could have seen more tremendous drives during Rubens’ time at Ferrari.
Barrichello played second fiddle to Schumacher for six seasons, five of which the German brought home the Drivers Championship. At the end of 2005, Rubens announced that he would be leaving Ferrari and joining the Honda team alongside Jenson Button. It was to be another three years of toil and struggle as the car got progressively worse. Ross Brawn joined the team having taken a sabbatical from Formula One and promised that the car would deliver in due course, but with a string of disappointing seasons culminating in an atrocious 2008, it seemed as if hope was becoming lost.
Surprisingly, things found a way of getting worse. Honda announced that they were pulling out of F1 for good, and without a drive for 2009 it seemed as though Rubens Barrichello’s time in F1 had also come to a close. However, an 11th hour attempt to save the team from Ross Brawn was successful, and a shoestring team simply known as ‘Brawn GP’ was ready to enter the new season with the old line-up of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello ready to give the sport another shot.
Of course, you know this story. It is incredible, but again it will have left a mildly sour taste in the mouth of Rubens Barrichello. Despite the incredible rise from the ashes that somehow made Brawn into the best car on the grid, Barrichello was not able to capitalise on this advantage and give himself the throw at the title he had always deserved. Jenson Button won six of the first seven races, giving him a practically unassailable advantage well before the halfway mark. One wonders why Rubens Barrichello wasn’t able to make the same sort of impact and offer a more potent challenge to Button.
Rubens regrettably lambasted the team during the season after a fuel-rig problem led to him being held up by Felipe Massa in the German Grand Prix. Barrichello claimed that the team had ‘made him lose the race’. In retrospect it was a mistake. Barrichello had been given an extraordinary opportunity with a car that was far and away the best in the field, and also had the benefit of being on level terms with his team-mate. It seemed rather unlike him to show a slight lack of gratitude in his comments about the team, but he did later admit he was wrong to say such things.
Jenson Button eventually won the title, and Barrichello was pushed out to Williams as Brawn secured the signings of Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg. Though the history and reputation of Williams perhaps offered Barrichello one more audacious shot at success, the team was in a rapid decline and Barrichello suffered another two seasons of mid-field to backmarking obscurity. It’s hard to say if Barrichello wasn’t pulling his weight at the team, but it seems unlikely that the experienced Brazilian would have lost his desire given that he has suffered through multiple horrendous seasons and come out of them stronger for it. In either case Barrichello was considered less worthy than the prospect of Bruno Senna and the money Pastor Maldonado can bring.
And with that comes the end of the longest F1 career in the sport’s history. What does Barrichello’s legacy leave behind? Without doubt, a message of perseverance. At any time, Rubens could have seen Schumacher’s dominance, decided he would never be able to beat him and quit. However, Rubens soldiered on and out of nothing, nearly succeeded in his quest for the title. He went through years of playing number two, years of sitting in the background waiting for his shot, years of being in horrendous cars. However, it was all worth it for those moments – those moments where he came so close. And those moments where he proved he could do it.
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