Rubens: Engine blow 'horrible feeling'

Barrichello was on a late charge to catch race leader Mika Hakkinen after opting for two pitstops at Indianapolis, when blue smoke began to appear from the back of his F2001 with just five laps to go.

Hakkinen, who went on to collect his second victory of the season, admitted he could not match Barrichello's pace and he could only "wait and hope", but fortune favoured the Finn as Barrichello's smoking engine finally blew on the last lap.

"The feeling is horrible," said Barrichello. "It's very difficult to express what I'm feeling right now. I have shown that whenever I have the chance to win, I'm going for it. We had a fantastic strategy and I was fighting the whole time for lap times and getting through the traffic.

"My second set of tyres wasn't great because I think the pressure went too high, but that only cost me a few tenths. But at the end it was going to be close. I had a little bit more speed that Mika. If I got it to within one second of him, I'm sure I could have fought the whole way through. But it wasn't to be."

Rather than taking his first victory of the year, Barrichello headed home to Brazil looking for solace with his recently born son Eduardo. He faces an uphill battle to wrestle the runners-up position in the drivers' championship from David Coulthard at the final round in Japan in two weeks' time.

Nothing less than a victory, with the Scot out of the top four, will elevate Rubens to the place behind world champion team mate Michael Schumacher, but he believes that in his current 'happy' mood he is capable of winning races.

"The best moment of my life just happened last week with the birth of my son," Barrichello said. "I'm a happy person and being a happy person, I'm a happy driver. Being a happy driver, I'm a faster driver. It's the way it's going.

The 29-year-old stood a good chance of winning the Italian Grand Prix two weeks ago, but a fuel rig problem during his second stop cost him time and left him in second place.

"Since Michael won the championship, I've had four chances of winning," he said. "Spa wasn't great. Monza was great. I was almost there if it wasn't for a long pit stop. And now here at the US Grand Prix I was almost there again.

"When I got to 2.8 or 2.6 seconds from Mika I started to have a little bit of feeling that the engine lost a little bit of power. After two laps, it was evident that I completely lost the power. The team were radioing me to short-shift the gears to preserve the engine but there wasn't anything we could do except drive and wait.

"The thing is, the car was so good that even though I had no engine at that time I was still going fast into the corners. I feel sad about it, but what can I do? I will be back in Brazil soon, seeing my son, in a couple of hours and that will make me feel better."