F1: Analysis - Tires Cost Barrichello Victory

Formula 1

F1: Analysis - Tires Cost Barrichello Victory

Adam Cooper says that whispers of a Brawn GP conspiracy against Rubens Barrichello are wide of the mark, after studying how the Spanish GP unfolded.

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted May 10, 2009 Barcelona (ESP)

Rubens Barrichello, Brawn Mercedes BGP 001 (Getty)

Spanish Grand Prix Photo Gallery HERE

Barrichello (L) once again had to cede the limelight to Button (Getty)

The Spanish GP continued its habit of rewarding the pole man as for the ninth year running the guy who started at the front won the race. But it wasn’t quite as easy as that, as for much of the afternoon it was Rubens Barrichello and not Jenson Button who held the advantage.

In the end their fortunes were reversed, and that inevitably has created something of a controversy as the Brawn team appeared to favour the championship leader, at the expense of poor old Rubens. But appearances can be deceptive, and the reality seems to be that that wasn’t the case.

Rubens had been quicker than Jenson for most of the weekend, and it was really only when it mattered in final qualifying that Button’s last gasp effort put him in front. From third on the grid Rubens did a great job to slice past not only Sebastian Vettel but also Jenson, by towing up behind on the run to Turn One and then pulling out and passing him round the outside. It was great stuff, and Rubens rightly surmised that his team mate would have to give best.

The safety car period slowed things down for a bit, but Rubens looked pretty comfortable out front in that first stint. There’s was some interest dialogue on the team radio as Jenson urged his team mate to get a move on, as if Barrichello could actually hear him. The only two-way conversations between team mates that I’ve ever come across were in that awful Sylvester Stallone movie, Driven...

Anyway, things got interesting at the first stops. As expected Jenson came in a lap earlier than his team mate, but it was clear from the nozzle times that the Englishman took on a significantly longer load. And that could only mean that while he was on a more traditional two-stop, Rubens was going for three stops.
At the time it looked like Rubens had been switched, but the real story is that both drivers were apparently originally intended to go for three stops, and while Rubens stuck to that, it was Jenson who was switched – in essence because there was a fear that he’d get stuck in traffic, be unable to properly take advantage of his light load, and risk being passed by Massa and Vettel.

Indeed the team still felt that three was the way to go and, if everything went to plan, Rubens would retain his advantage for the rest of the race. Initially it looked like that would be the case, as in his second stint he opened up a reasonable gap. But after his stop on his third set of tyres he wasn’t very happy, and didn’t make the progress that he needed to. And that translated into Jenson getting ahead when both men had completed their final stops.

The conspiracy theorists suggest that Rubens was put on an unfavourable strategy in order to slow him down and allow Jenson through, but it was rather a convoluted way of doing it, and the official Brawn line does make sense.

Rubens himself was a little shell shocked afterwards. I was standing alongside SPEED’s Peter Windsor when Rubens gave us an astonishing quote when asked to compare the situation with the one he left at Ferrari: ‘If I ever think that Ross has done something to favour Jenson, I will put my boots up and call it a day. I won’t go into that direction. It’s so much a softer atmosphere, and it was Ross that called me to be driving for him. He’s a guy that I believe in very much, and a guy that I think likes me. So I cannot believe in that. The day he tells me he gave a favour to Jenson is the day that... He won’t see me any more in this, because I don’t need that, I’m much bigger than that.’

Powerful stuff! But after he returned to the team, spoke to Brawn, looked at the numbers and heard the full story for himself, he accepted that fortune hadn’t favoured him. What did annoy him was that he hadn’t been told in advance of his own stop that Jenson’s strategy had changed, and he could not react. Meanwhile team insiders pointed to his disappointing third stint as evidence that he hadn’t done as good a job as Jenson.

You had to feel sorry for the guy, because he’s done a pretty good job for most of the year, and seems to have been getting as much bad luck land come his way as Jenson has had good luck. But for someone in his 275th start he’s still pretty hungry, and that elusive win can’t be far away.

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