Barrichello Not Looking for Schumacher Help

Rubens Barrichello told Ferrari teammate Michael Schumacher on Thursday that he is not looking for favours to help him to a popular home victory in this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix.

Barrichello has only finished once in 11 races on his home soil and has targeted a podium-topping end to the season after winning two of the last three races.

But he knows that Schumacher is also looking for victory and said: "At the bottom of his heart Michael would like for me to finish quite well here but I don't want any presents.

"I'm not expecting any presents and I think that if he had to decide whether he was going to win or let me win I'm sure he would choose for himself."

Barrichello is guaranteed of second in the Championship behind Schumacher as his closes rival, Jenson Button, is too far behind to catch up with just Sunday's race left to run. He knows that gremlins can strike at any time after posting his only retirement of the season at the last race in Japan when he collided with McLaren's David Coulthard.

But Barrichello is still confident.

"I'm feeling as good as ever," he said. "I'm lucky that I can be here with a competitive car, in the state of mind that I'm feeling right now, just feeling good. To be honest, if I had got to Brazil without any wins (this season), feeling that this was the last race and trying to do that, it would have been very difficult, in terms of just a pure mind game.

"It would have been very difficult. I think the two race wins were fantastic. I had the speed to win the (Japan) race as well if it wasn't for the qualifying and so on, so I'm feeling good."