INTERVIEW WITH RUBENS BARICHELLO - II

Who : Rubens Barrichello
About : Formula One Driver
Website: http://www.barrichello.com.br/index.php?l=2

How it happened : Interview with Rubens Barrichello
Interview Date: April 2-3-4, 2004
Place: F1 Bahrain Grand Prix, in the Paddock area
Pics: Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix

He has been the team mate to Michael Schumacher through thick and thin – usually through thick ! But you can’t call him second fiddle. He is one of the greatest drivers in formula one, in his own right. He might not win every grand prix, but he does make his presence felt… and how !

Nikhil Taneja (NT) : You backed up Michael with a great team performance and Ferrari were very dominant today. How was your car?
Rubens Barrichello (RB ) : My car was great. Unfortunately the rain, we had some drops at the start, didn't come my way again, just like Malaysia. I hoped that some short-term rain might help just because my brakes were a little bit too cold and I needed to warm them up but at the same time I needed to save fuel a little bit on the out lap. I almost had to avoid Michael on the first corner and then he was very, very fast for the first couple of corners. So he got a gap and it was difficult to follow but I was within two or three tenths. I knew as my brakes were coming better that I would have a chance to race with him a little bit closer but unfortunately I had a small problem on the pitstops and he opened up the ten seconds. Even though I got it sometimes to eight seconds it was difficult with traffic and so on and he was fast anyway so it was just that ten seconds it was difficult to get back.

NT : Did you have any worries with the brakes, especially after Malaysia?
RB : Mmm, no. We had to be conservative, we had to look after them, but in a way, my brake pedal stayed quite consistent.

NT : There is an interesting feature in your brilliant career. When you because formula open champion in 1989 in your first season on the European tracks, you weren’t actually 18, which was the minimum age required for contesting. And to contest, you used your father’s identity card ! Tell us more about it.
RB : Well, I had no age. Incidentally, my father and I share the same name and same birthday, so it was the only way to do the first six races !

NT : How do you look back on the first two grand prixes of this season ?
RB : Our car was fast enough in the first two races !

NT : You have driven this track quite a few times now. Where would you say this track is lacking and where would you see that it is better than other tracks?
RB : For me, I think that the only thing that the track is actually lacking is that we need more races. It's brand new, the track will get better, so it's not lacking anything. It's just that as we have more races here, I think the track will eventually get even better. So there's no downside right now.

NT : Which one track would you say is the most challenging you have ever raced on and how would you compare Bahrain to that particular track?
RB : Everyone has a challenge, I think this one is pretty good on challenges, even though there are not many high speed corners, but it's really difficult to get it right and even though in turns five and six you don't brake as much, it's still a nice corner.

NT : This is just a little humour: I would like to ask you guys how many speeding tickets have you managed on the road?
RB : I had one last week in Brazil but I was talking with my Vodafone at traffic lights and then they gave me a ticket for that. I sent it to Vodafone.

© Nikhil Taneja (nikhiltaneja@gmail.com)