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F1: Tire Choice Earns Barrichello Podium
Written by: Adam Cooper
RACER Magazine   http://www.racer.com/speedtv
07/06/2008 - 04:37 PM
Northamptonshire, UK
 
For the first time, Barrichello tasted champagne with Honda. (LAT Photo) ยป More Photos

An inspired choice to go to extreme wet tires propelled Rubens Barrichello to a surprise third place at Silverstone.

When heavy rain began to fall in the middle of the race Rubens went to extremes, but he lost in the pits due to a problem getting the fuel in the car. He resumed with the fuel that he already had in the tank, and was instantly the quickest man on the tack by some margin.

He shot up to third place and briefly held second after Nick Heidfeld pitted. When his fuel load had run down Rubens came in again and went back on intermediates, as by then he rain had eased off.

“Well, it’s fantastic,” said Rubens. “I’ve never lost the belief that I have in me, this speed and everything. Obviously it was a lucky day with the weather and so on. It seems to always happen to me in a way, because I love wet weather conditions. But it was a perfect race. We had a minor problem on the pit stop, that for some reason I stayed there – I think I had the fuel already – but they just didn’t let me go for some reason, but that was a minor problem.

“I think it was the very right decision for us to take the extreme wet weather and I could see, I was passing people on the inside, the outside and it was just magic. I thought that was a good
decision because I ran off the track at Club and I almost hit the wall. Club and Abbey were the most difficult ones, so for me, I took the decision. I said I’m coming in and I’m coming for the extreme.”

Barrichello said that he always had faith in his team: “I’ve joined them for a purpose. I always thought they had a fantastic 2004 season. They didn’t do very well in 2005, so I thought that it was just going to come back in 2006 because they have fantastic engineers, fantastic mechanics, the organization, the whole policy of the team is good, but they needed a technical leader, so it took a long time until Ross came. Everything calmed down a bit and now we have a lot of respect between ourselves and I think the work is nice, very nice.”

Rubens tried to put a stop to any rumors about an impending retirement.

“I think the podium comes at a good time. I have no intention of stopping. I will only stop if I have nowhere else to go, but my intention is to stay with Honda. I have no contracts just yet, but I feel young. I love racing more than I ever did. The day that I find that I’m actually slower than in that first race at Kyalami [in 1993] is the day I will stop. Right now I’m just feeling that I’m faster than that day.”
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