Just like starting over: interview with Rubens Barrichello

With the line-ups at McLaren and Renault remaining unchanged, the big question marks of 2006 surround the ripples created by Rubens Barrichello's departure from Ferrari to Honda. For the first time in this millennium, Michael Schumacher has a new teammate in Felipe Massa, and the world awaits their confrontation with interest.

But no less intriguing is the prospective battle at Barrichello's new home, where the Brazilian finds himself up against Jenson Button. The Briton has established an extraordinary close relationship with his team, as evidenced last year by his desire to stay, and the management's efforts to hold on to him. And he has a contract that stretches far into the future.

It wouldn't be easy for any driver to join the fray in such circumstances, but it doesn't faze Rubens, who arrives battle-hardened after his memorable half a dozen years alongside Schumacher.

His relationship with the Italian team officially finished last week, and Barrichello will finally get his first taste of Honda power next week. It'll be his first outing in anything other than a Ferrari since his last race for Stewart, in the 1999 Japanese Grand Prix, and incredibly his first laps not on Bridgestone tyres since his final outing for Jordan at Suzuka in 1996...

You can hardly blame Ferrari for keeping him under tight rein until December 31st, for after all, he did ask to be let out of a contract that run through to the end of 2006. As Buttongate II showed, teams can react very differently in similar circumstances.

Barrichello's unexpected request to get out of that contract may ultimately have fitted in with other plans, but the fact that he was allowed to walk by Jean Todt is a sign that of the mutual respect generated between driver and team over those years. It wasn't always easy, but he won't forget his spell at Maranello in a hurry.

"Yes, it was the best part of my life," he says. "It's when my two kids were born! I'm a happy man, as always. The first two years at Ferrari were very, very difficult for me to understand everything, and there were things that took two hours with other teams to change, and with them it happened in 15 minutes!

"I learned that there was no limit for changing your car and looking for perfection. At the end of the day, it took one or two years for me to really settle in a little bit. By 2002 I was actually doing very well, and helping the team even further.

"I have a lot of friends there, and I had a fantastic relationship with the sponsors. People ask me, are you very emotional about it? I'm not, because I'm not actually saying 'goodbye, I'm never going to see you any more'. We're going to be together, we're going to go to dinner. It's not something where I'm feeling sad. I'm moving on."

Unable to sample test for his new team, Barrichello was hardly disappointed not to be spending his December in Jerez or Barcelona. Instead, he enjoyed most of his near three-month break back home in his beloved Brazil, chilling out and getting in some quality time with his two kids.

That sort of extended time off is rare for any driver, and any negatives in terms of loss of ultimate 'match fitness' are more than outweighed by the mental benefits. His old pal Ayrton Senna knew the value of clearing the head.

And Rubens certainly needed to do that after what was without doubt a frustrating and at times downright demoralising 2005 season. He'd grown used to finishing second even on a bad day, and suddenly he was battling even to get into the points.

"You have to be well with yourself to understand that a fight is a fight. Sometimes it's for 10th, and sometimes it's first. It was very unfortunate, obviously, but you have to live the moment, and if it's a bad moment, you let it go. If it's a good moment, you stick to it.

"In Bahrain, the rear tyres were finished. I was up to sixth, and quite rapidly I lost everything. In Barcelona, we had blisters on the tyres and we were getting nowhere. Turkey was probably the most horrible race for us, because it was racing to nowhere. I hoped until the very last lap that my tyres were going to be the strongest ones, because we were on the hard tyres, and I thought maybe it's coming, but it never came. Imola was kind of a bad race as well.

"The best thing for you to do for yourself, is you've got to be ready whenever the car is ready. If the car is not ready, you burn energy for nothing, so you have to believe that you can do nicely."

Although he often found himself trailing his teammate in 2005, the disappointment of his final season with the team has done nothing to diminish Barrichello's self-belief.

"I believe very much in what I can do with a team. I think I've learned so much with Ferrari, and I've had quite a successful six years. The problem was that even through I tried very hard, and even though I've had a lot of attention from the team, the team is very well based to give Michael the best possibility of winning the championship.

"Even though I've had other years when people might have talked to me for something else, my best chance ever in six years was BAR. I just took it because I really believe in Honda. I don't think I'm moving backwards, I'm moving forwards."

For several years Barrichello was fond of saying that he was the future of Ferrari. Was that because he always thought that Schumacher would retire sooner rather than later, leaving him as successor?

"No, I believe that on my talent... I think talent for talent, Michael probably has a bit more, but if you throw me inside a cage with a lion and Michael there, I promise you I can come away from there quite alive!

"It's a kind of a situation that I just think I survive quite well, and did quite well to survive, and to always promote the harmony inside of the team. But up to a point that you lose a little bit of patience and you see that you're getting nowhere, so it was time to leave."

It can't be easy for any racing driver to admit that his teammate has more talent, even if he is Michael Schumacher, but Rubens denies that he's actually conceding anything too dramatic.

"No, no. By saying that he has a little bit more talent, I'm not saying that he's quicker than me. He can do things with the car differently, and I can do things with the car that probably he cannot do. I don't mean that he's faster than me, by any means.

"Naturally, he probably has a touch more, you could argue, because he has seven World Championships and I don't have any! But as I said, if you throw us at the beginning of a team with the same everything, I can probably do very well."

That's an interesting point. Michael had a four-year head start at Ferrari, and that made life even harder for Rubens. So what if the two of them were starting fresh somewhere together?

"I think I can be World Champion as much as he can..."

Barrichello's relationship with Schumacher has had different shadings over the years, but there's no doubt that after the last lap of last year's Monaco GP, things were never quite the same again.

"I told him to his face that I didn't like the Monaco thing, because I was thinking that I had someone protecting me, and they didn't. It did happen. I have no arguments.

"I don't regret anything that I had at Ferrari. The bad moments really put me onto good ones. I had six years where we learned and we really enjoyed ourselves very much. 2005 was tough, but when I saw that I wasn't really getting my chance to win the championship, I might look for somewhere else."

But is it out of the frying pan, into the fire? Button is on a roll at Honda, and he has a three-year head start. That long-term contract is a sign of the respect the team has for him, and the Honda people adore him.

However, Barrichello can hardly be discounted. Earlier in his career, he spent seven years in British teams, and he knows how things work. He has sporting director and fellow Brazilian Gil de Ferran as a valuable ally within the top management.

Most importantly, Barrichello has strengths such as knowledge, confidence and speed that, if he's able to use them to the max, will allow his driving to do the talking. It's not about who gets the better treatment, but about who gets the job done.

"First of all, I don't expect anything to be worse than racing against Michael. That's the first thing. The second thing is that Jenson is a great guy. I've heard that he's a great team player, as much as I am.

"The team put a lot of effort into contracting me, for me to bring the knowledge and the speed to win the championship. So it would be very sad just to think that they were [going] to give everything to Jenson.

"So this is not the case. It's going to happen for us both, we're going to have equal chances, and the best will win. There are the days that he'll win, and other days that he won't do very well. But I've been learning to have many more better days than bad days!

"In life we have to wake up, and if you feel maybe it's not so good, then turn that bad day into a good day. I will bring a lot of experience and speed to the team, and I think Jenson will too. I'm happy that he's on board, because we're going to push each other, and effectively win for a team that I believe can do so."

He certainly scored some points by first indicating his interest in the job as early as May last year, when the team was at a low after their disqualification from the San Marino Grand Prix, and the subsequent two-race ban. That was taken as a sign of commitment.

"I had a vote of confidence on Honda and BAR for a long time, I've been watching them for a long time. They were the first ones to test the V8s, and I was quite impressed, because it was running quite smooth. I've heard so much about Honda from Ayrton. Gil told me the last few stories of the whole team.

"I'm not scared of Jenson being there already. I'm very friendly anyway, and I think the team is on that side as well, so we just have to get on with the job. I cannot wait until January 11th comes up, and I can get into my new car and drive..."

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- The Autosport.com Team

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