Spain: Rubens Barrichello Race Q&A

Rubens, a great team performance as well. Tell us about the race from your point of view.

The race evolved quite well. I had a great start, went to the lead. I was running a tiny bit quicker than Jenson to begin with and I had two more laps of fuel. It was running quite well and then I heard they changed Jenson's strategy and I had to keep on pushing. My third set of tyres was not good. I don't know if there was something broken on the car or anything. I could not keep my pace up as well as the last set, so I guess it wasn't the tyre, it must be something to do with the car and from there on it was a struggle. I had a big struggle to keep the car on the track and a relief to come second and a big thank you to the whole group as it is still first and second back in Europe. Disappointed that I haven't won the race as I thought I had it in the bag today but it is still a good effort from the whole team.

A great start for you.

I had a great reflex and I did have a little better start than Jenson and I used his slipstream and was able to carry that momentum into the first corner.

And then coming in for this earlier pit stop for your scheduled strategy?

I was on a lap or two longer. Obviously I think Jenson caught me up a little bit on the strategy because of the safety car. I was quite happy as having a lap longer and being in front I was delighted. I had the race in my hands, so I was actually quite surprised when they told me they had switched Jenson to two. From then on I had to go flat out. The only minor thing was that I came in a lap or two earlier on my final pit stop as there were lots of cars and blue flags and I was losing time.

Your thoughts on today? How much was Massa a threat with his KERS?

He was always a threat before the race but I was very confident that we could have a good start. I was very determined to be very precise with everything and my race was like that. My race was very precise. From the first corner I thought leading the race and having a lap more than Jenson I would have won the race. I pushed from the very beginning as much as I could. There was never any time that I dropped any time as I just had to go flat out as soon as they told me that Jenson had switched to a two I thought there was some danger in there because when you have three and the guys are behind, he will be much faster but you can control the visibility and see where he is fast and where he is not and control the pace. But when I saw that he changed I was on my own and had to go flat out and I did. I couldn't have done any better. On my third set I didn't have the pace that I had on the first and second set. I don't know why. It was just not there. I was locking wheels all over the place and the same thing happened to the final set, so I hope that the guys come back to me and say there was a small problem somewhere. But again, I go home happy with myself. I gave everything I could but unfortunately I missed by a little bit the victory.

It is a big disappointment with the difference in strategies?

Well, it was a disappointment yesterday to have lost the pole position. But, you know you find energy, you put yourself up to the cage. I love the challenge as well and after I had the start I told myself everything is coming up again, so use your best knowledge and experience and speed. Everything was coming alive, so it is a disappointment not to have won the race today of course.

And what was the tyre strategy and was there a big difference between the tyres?

No, I left the hards to the very end, so I think everyone must have struggled a touch more with that. The first three sets they had a common, maybe my third set had three or four laps more if they did but not that it would have meant a problem. Otherwise we would not have gone for three stops. As Jenson said we were both on three stops and they changed the strategy for him. Good for him, good for the team as we both covered one and two but I would like to understand why we changed that.

Who does the strategy in the team? Is it Ross or is it your race engineer?

It's a group. Ross is involved. A group, we are together and this morning we decided that three stops was the way to go. We came straight here (after the race) but after this evening we are going to have a meeting again and then we have some answers.

I remember the Austrian race a few years with Michael (Schumacher), early in the season, and you were stopped to allow him to win. Are you afraid that this could happen again, seeing that Jenson is winning so much and you are trying to score points and probably looking for a championship, that this might happen again with the team pushing more for Jenson and you covering his shoulders?

Well, I'm very experienced with that, and if that happens, I won't follow any team orders any more. I'm making it clear now, so everybody knows. It's much more different than it used to be at Ferrari. We have a much more friendly situation, so I'm not sitting down on the side blaming this or that. The race was finished half an hour ago and that's the way it went. There's no way I'm going to be crying here and saying I should have done this or that. It's in the best interests of myself to learn what went wrong today because I had the ability to win the race but I didn't and this is a full stop. Jenson is on a flyer and he's doing very well. I think this weekend was really good for me because I worked quite hard on all the set-up and everything. We both learned to get better, we're pushing each other very well. There's a bit more pressure on my side, obviously, because he's won four races and I've won nothing but I'm there, I'm working and I won't stop working. I'm definitely raising my hands to the sky to give thanks because this is a great car. It was not long ago that people were putting flowers on my grave and saying ‘thank you very much for your job' and so on. So I'm here, very much alive and happy and I'm going to make it work. It's as it was some years ago but with a much more friendly atmosphere.