Rubens Barrichello revealed Ferrari began imposing team orders against him from his debut at the 2000 Australian Grand Prix as he was subtly instructed not to challenge Michael Schumacher, as well as being controlled in the media.
Fans old enough to have watched the great German’s peak in Formula 1 will remember the 2001 Austrian GP when Barrichello was ordered to surrender second place on the last lap as David Coulthard romped home to win for McLaren.
But the drama boiled over a year later at the A1-Ring in Spielberg in 2002 when the Brazilian was forced to relinquish victory on the last lap as he maliciously complied by allowing his colleague through right on the line, by a margin of 0.182s.
Schumacher was booed on the podium, despite the world champion hauling Barrichello up to the top step in his place. The team was then summoned by the FIA to explain, before being fined $333,000. Both drivers were also fined the same amount or defying podium procedure.
From 2003, team orders were then banned until 2011. However, Schumacher’s legacy and the authenticity of it have always been overshadow by claims his teammates were contractually banned from challenging him, with Coulthard saying it was in a proposed deal for him.
Now Barrichello, aged 52, reveals he was handed team orders from his very first appearance in the famous Ferrari red car not to challenge Schumacher, being instructed to manage his engine whilst running behind the dominant driver in the F1 paddock at the time.
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“The time outside the car was the toughest time, because it’s a lot more work,” Barrichello told the Beyond the Grid podcast. “It’s a lot more media, a lot more travelling.
“There are papers that come with, ‘you can say this, you cannot say that.’ You know, people are just watching. But then every time I sat on the car, I had the pleasure and the gratitude of driving a really good car, and that paid off.
“Every time you saw me in the car, take Australia, the very first race. I was second, but I was getting close to Michael that race.
“That was the first time I heard something on the radio that I had to drop the revs, or something like this. But you see, I was prepared for that.
“Just because pressure for me was really when I did not know when I met my father after work, if he would come back to me and say, ‘Son, we have no money to go for this go-kart race’.
“Pressure was that. Those difficult times that I had made me prepared for the time that I would then have people watching.”
Barrichello regrets not standing up for himself
Schumacher went on to claim the victory by 11.4 seconds and unprecedent success followed for the rest of the season through until the end of 2006, before Lewis Hamilton later matched his records and eclipsed some.
Barrichello, meanwhile, claimed 20 career wins, 55 podiums and 12 poles. He helped Ferrari to titles from 2001-2004 before helping Brawn GP win the 2009 constructors’ championship in one of F1’s greatest stories.
Yet upon looking back at his career, he decided he isn’t sure whether he was truly better than Schumacher, who he never finished ahead of in the standings, but he wished he fought for the right to be himself more.
“Would I have done anything different in my whole career? We would have made some changes along the way,” Barrichello added. “But I have gratitude for everything that happened, even times like at Ferrari that were tough.
“I would spend an hour with Ross [Brawn] and Jean Todt saying: ‘Look, this shouldn’t be done like this, and this, and this, and this.’
“And now sometimes I see people just talking to the press. I feel that I was okay with the press, but I talked really hard with them, because, I mean, guys, you need to let me be myself.
“So was Schumacher better than me? I think so. But 51-49? 70-30? I don’t know. We will never know, because it was something that it was not supposed to let you free.”
