Barrichello speaks: Schumacher’s other half at Ferrari

Monza is also a place close to Rubens Barrichello’s heart; for six years he was the other half of Schumacher’s Ferrari duo. This weekend he will be back behind the wheel of a red Ferrari – the 2002 model with which he won four races in one of the most successful seasons of Ferrari’s golden era during those years. “I remember the first time I arrived at Monza to drive a Formula 3 car. I didn’t know the circuit, but a special person explained it to me: Alex Zanardi. He showed me everything and from that moment on I was flying. Sandro used to fly here. I learnt a lot from him. And it was also because of him that I’d chosen to race for an Italian team, the ‘Baron Rampante’, which was based in Padua, near Treviso, where my family came from.” It was 1992. The following year he returned there in Formula 1, and in 2000 he began competing there in red. He won with Ferrari in 2002 and 2004, and with Brawn in 2009 in what remains the last victory by a Brazilian driver in Formula 1: “I was the first to celebrate on what remains one of the most beautiful podiums in the World Championship. I remember that sea of red beneath me. And that sea of red was there when I was wearing a red overalls, but also when I climbed onto the podium in my white overalls. They are wonderful memories that you carry with you for the rest of your life.”

Michael Schumacher is here with us this weekend. Ferrari has dedicated the car’s livery to him, modelled on the one he raced here in when he won for the first time thirty years ago. On the nose of Leclerc and Hamilton’s SF-26 are the seven stars that Michael had on his helmet. “It really pleases me to see them. They make me think of Michael. It’s hard to think about him because he was so important to all of us, and to me too.” He then adds a remark that sums up his relationship with Schumacher perfectly: “When I spoke to Jean Todt, I told him I wanted every opportunity, but above all I wanted to know just how good I was alongside Michael.” After all, that was partly why Barrichello joined Ferrari: to discover his own limits by watching the best driver every day. “Having a team-mate like him always pushed you to strive for something more.” It wasn’t easy. Yet even today, the Brazilian rejects the simplistic interpretation of those years – the idea of Schumacher’s Ferrari with Barrichello as a mere bit-part player. “Ross Brawn did his job, Jean Todt did his, Michael did his, the tyre engineer did his. It was all well organised. And if the aerodynamics weren’t working, no one was singled out. It was a team effort. We won together.” Then comes what is almost a statement of claim: “At a certain point they realised: this Barrichello really does know what he’s talking about when it comes to the car. I started developing it myself too. When someone says ‘Michael won and Rubens didn’t’, they don’t understand a thing.” He acknowledges a lingering sense of disappointment, yet he also takes pride in having been part of an extraordinary team that still inspires many today. This is probably the legacy that has stayed with him more than that of Ferrari: the idea that winning is, above all, a collective effort. Even Schumacher, Rubens recalls, knew how to take a step back. “I saw him say many times: ‘No, Rubens decides’. Hearing that from a champion with all those stars makes me feel I was part of history.” And the fondest memories aren’t necessarily those of the podium. “I went to Disney in Orlando with him. People only imagine the problems – one wanting to overtake the other, number one and number two. But we had our own stories. We were friends, too. I remember the first time we stood together on the podium at Aida in 1994. He looked at me as if to say, ‘Well done, young man.’ I’m convinced he put in a good word for me when Ferrari came looking for me.”

It’s time to open the album of memories. Of his 11 victories, Rubens chooses the one at Silverstone in 2003: “The best car of my life. The best ever.” But when it comes to emotion, Hockenheim 2000 is unrivalled. His first Formula 1 victory, starting from eighteenth on the grid, after years spent wondering when his moment would come. “I was already in my seventh season and hadn’t won yet. I’d been having a bit of a chat with the heavens, asking: ‘Why on earth isn’t it happening?’” It all happened that day. Rain, chaos, strategies. From the pits they asked him when he’d pit. “Why on earth would I pit?” They told him the others were coming in. “I thought: they’re mad.” He stayed out. “Ross told me, ‘If you know what you’re doing, stay out.’” And he won. He has remained in touch with Ross. After all, Ross had wanted him at Brawn GP. “Last week I rang him to ask for the address of a restaurant in Florence where he’d treated me to dinner. I went back there and the Florentine steak was still extraordinary. Back then, we’d be on the track for days on end. Six hundred kilometres per session; by the end, your head was spinning and you’d start wondering whether the suspension would hold up at the Arrabbiata, the corner you had to take flat-out at Mugello. But that’s how it was: after I’d tested for three days at Fiorano, we’d say to each other, ‘See you on Monday at Mugello for another two days of testing.’ Then on Tuesday evening, Ross came to me and said, ‘I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that we’re testing again tomorrow; the good news is that I’m treating you to dinner in Florence.” That was his Formula 1 – one of endless tests to improve by a thousandth of a second. It was also a Formula 1 where people still died on the track. Rubens’s name is linked to that fateful weekend at Imola in 1994. He was the first to have a horrific crash that sent him to hospital. The next day, Ratzenberger died. On Sunday, Senna – his friend Ayrton – passed away. “In Brazil, we say a cat has nine lives. I’ve already lost three or four of mine. I thank God and life for saving me that weekend.” Then he looks at his children, looks at Monza, looks at a Ferrari, and always comes back to the same point. “Everything is done for love.”