Analysis: Barrichello's Confidence Shines Through

It takes confidence to laughingly pour a bottle of champagne over the head of Fiat and Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo in front of tens of thousands of people.

Brazilian Rubens Barrichello did it with a smile as broad as his face after winning the inaugural Chinese Grand Prix for Ferrari on Sunday, drenching the aristocratic Italian and soaking his designer jacket.

Then they embraced. Barrichello, whose spirits had sagged at the start of the Formula One season as teammate Michael Schumacher won race after race, has a new air of confidence about him.

"I was probably the only man in his life that got him wet," the Brazilian grinned after the podium celebrations. "I feel pretty happy about that too."

Barrichello is a winner on a roll, Ferrari's main man for the last two races despite his clear second-string status in Schumacher's shadow.

The German, who clinched his unprecedented seventh title last month and finished 12th on Sunday after starting last, has now gone three races without a win while Barrichello has two in a row.

The novelty of a post-race news conference without Schumacher was compounded by Ferrari team boss Jean Todt uttering words not heard since the end of last season when Schumacher had a similar nightmare in Japan: "All our chances of victory rested on Rubens."

Technical director Ross Brawn added: "It was a fantastic race from Rubens. He had a very good start and was quick when he needed to be...It was a perfect race from him and a very, very good job. He deserved the win."

Red Winner

Barrichello delivered on Sunday from pole position to give China, a country where the national red flags flutter from every flagpole, a winner in red.

"It's been a season where I have been playing catch up really to Michael," he said. "He started on a higher level and, for some reason, I wasn't able to catch him.

"Right now I am just going through a good phase and here in China since the beginning of the week I have been setting good times and the set-up was quite good."

The 10 points guaranteed Barrichello second place in the Drivers' Championship for the second time while the win was the ninth of his 196-race career.

"Physically I would say this race was a lot tougher than Monza, that's for sure," said the Brazilian, who won in Italy two weeks ago.

"But any time when you're winning it's different. I thought at Monza we had a car that was much quicker than our competitors. Here we didn't have a car that was a lot faster."