Analysis: No Place Like Home for Barrichello

Rubens Barrichello does not believe in bad luck. But after failing to finish his home Brazilian Grand Prix for nine years in a row, the Ferrari driver must be beginning to wonder.

Sunday's season-ending Formula One race at Interlagos is the event closest to the heart of the 32-year-old Barrichello, triumphant in Italy and China last month after emerging from the shadow of all-conquering teammate Michael Schumacher.

"If I could win in Brazil, I guess I would be happier than winning the whole Championship," he said after celebrating victory in Shanghai.

Yet Interlagos is the place where Barrichello, who grew up within earshot of the circuit, has always had most support and least success.

He has never been on the podium there and his fourth place for Jordan in March 1994 remains his sole scoring finish in 11 starts.

No Brazilian has scored even a point in his home race since the country's revered three-times World Champion Ayrton Senna died at Imola in May 1994, and Barrichello can be considered the unluckiest of the lot.

His run of failure is a record for any driver in a home race, even if Italians Andrea de Cesaris and Riccardo Patrese endured 12 non-finishes in Britain and Belgium respectively.

Difficult Decade

Yet Barrichello shuns talk of a jinx.

"First of all, I don't believe in bad luck," he said. "I believe that so many things happened, human errors or other things...that cost me finishes."

While there is no place like home, there is also no place like Brazil for putting pressure on local drivers.

Senna, the last Brazilian to win there in 1993, is worshipped and Barrichello, to whom the late Champion was a friend and mentor, carries the weight of expectation as the country's only race winner in the last decade.

Yet this time, despite all that has happened in the past, there is reason to believe that things could turn out differently.

Brazil is now the season-ender, whereas in the past it came at the start of the year, and that has to be good news for Barrichello.

Ferrari and Schumacher have won both the titles and there is no longer any need for the Brazilian to play the dutiful number two. And his car should keep going.

"Being the last race is good because the car is very reliable, as we know, so that is one factor less," said the Brazilian. "Anything can happen in any of the races but to be the last race, you have more reliability than the first.

"With the speed of the car and so on we are going to Brazil with a good, realistic chance of winning the race."

That is more than can be said of many of Barrichello's previous attempts. In 1995 he was stopped by gearbox trouble. The following year he started on the front row but spun his Jordan while in fourth place. He was stranded on the grid in 1997, when his Stewart failed to start. The suspension then went when he switched to the team's spare car.

In 1998 it was the gearbox again, and in 1999 he led for 23 laps in the Stewart until the engine blew. He led again in 2000 for two laps before being stopped by a hydraulics failure.

Barrichello stalled on the warm-up lap in 2001 and had to start in the spare after a sweaty run back to the garages. The race did not last long, with the Brazilian shunting Ralf Schumacher off and ending up in the gravel on three wheels.

Hydraulics sidelined him in 2002 and last year, after starting on pole, he ran out of fuel while in the lead.

Helping Hand

Schumacher, who won his unprecedented seventh Championship in August and has 13 wins so far this year, has triumphed four times in Brazil.

The German also loves winning but has been throwing out hints that maybe he will lend his teammate a hand this time.

"It's important that a Ferrari finishes first," he said on his website this week. "Which one of the two cars it will be, is not important.

"Rubens is a very strong driver, there's no question about that. He doesn't need anyone's help. And I'm sure that he would prefer to win by himself and not rely on someone else helping him.

"Each one of us will drive his own race and we'll see how it turns out in the end. But that doesn't mean that I won't help Rubens if the situation calls for it."

Brazil will have two other local drivers to cheer on - Toyota's Ricardo Zonta and Sauber's Felipe Massa.

Massa has just one home appearance to his credit, in 2002, when he collided with Australian Mark Webber's Minardi.

Zonta finished ninth in 2000 with BAR and did not start in 1999, after an accident in practice ruled him out of the following three races.

Since 1994, Enrique Bernoldi, Luciano Burti, Pedro Diniz, Tarso Marques, Cristiano da Matta, Roberto Moreno, Antonio Pizzonia and Ricardo Rosset have all tried and failed to score points in their country's Grand Prix.

So much for home advantage.