In the eight races in the 2009 Formula One season so far, Rubens Barrichello has come second behind his Brawn team-mate Jenson Button seven times.
The veteran Brazilian has a litany of excuses for the apparent performance deficit, but you wonder if, privately, he does not fear the same thing happening to him now as when he was Michael Schumacher’s stooge at Ferrari between 2000 and 2005, while Button prepares to clinch the world championship.
In Spain in May he had the legs of his team-mate but lost out when Button won after being switched from three- to a two-stop refuelling. Barrichello was visibly upset afterwards that his strategy was not also changed.
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“We had such a bad car for the last couple of years,” he says, “but the motivation was always very high. You change your approach. When you have a bad car you know that for you to win is gonna be pretty much impossible, so you’ve gotta think that things happen for a reason. You gotta keep on going.”
“There are things happen to you in life where you’ve got to keep on learning. Life is altogether a learning thing. Right now Jenson has done the winning, and he deserves it.” He then cites the reasons he sees for the Englishman’s superiority.
“So I could say, ‘What do I do?’ The answer is you do nothing, you just keep on working and eventually good things are going to come your way.”
He remains adamant that he hasn’t given up on winning the championship this year. “23 points behind? Yeah, that’s very hard. But it was very hard as well not having a car in the first place. That’s maybe a bit too philosophical, but in the end that’s what keeps my motivation. And I’m not gonna give up until the points gap cannot be overcome.”
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