89 replies to this topic

[Ric Bol]

I'm brazilian too, but this Rubinho was so terible this year that I couldn't expect nothing about him next year.

On board with a brilliant Ferrari he couldn't win, or made one pole position or one best lap on a race, he is a complete "mental-problem" driver.

for me it's enough, I try to wait Felipe Massa to save brazilians talent in F1.

Saludos

[RJL]

Rubey may not be the best Brazilian driver ever (that distinction must certainly fall to a certain yellow helmet) but he is not the worst. there have been other brazilians who were less tahn brilliant over the years. All Barichello is guilty of is being average. Anybody would come off looking second best with MS as a teammate.

[Ric Bol]

Of course that i means, atn this moment, I never forget Diniz, Rosset, Gugelmim, etc etc, but Rubinho would be able to drive another 2 years in Ferrari? I hope not!
For me he's a looser driver for the rst of his life, and his way could be the Cart at 2003.
Saludos
PS: Piquet 10, Senna 9, Fittipaldi 8, in my opinion.

[RJL]

Originally posted by Ric Bol

For me he's a looser driver for the rst of his life, and his way could be the Cart at 2003.
Saludos
PS: Piquet 10, Senna 9, Fittipaldi 8, in my opinion.

Well if RB does indeed go to CART in 2003 (if there even IS a CART in 2003) I should hope he will not be a 'looser driver'. Being "loose" on an oval is an invitation for disaster. Better to "push" I would think.;)

If we're selecting Brazilians in order, my choice would be: Senna, Piquet, Fittipaldi.

[Alien]

Barichello showed some promise when he was a rookie but he doesn´t seem to have raised his game afterwards. Of course he is a perfect second driver in team shumacher, i think that is why he is there.

[LeTurc]

OF COURSE, people before 2000 didnt think so. Everybody who shared a car with MS suddenly became slower.

[KinetiK]

Originally posted by LeTurc
OF COURSE, people before 2000 didnt think so. Everybody who shared a car with MS suddenly became slower.

Le Turc, you're worse than Magic with his Senna fixation. GIVE IT A BREAK! jesus....

[Pikachu Racing]

I wonder if pressure to be the next "Brazilian racing hero" after Senna have anything to do with it. Barrichello isn't the worst Brazilian driver out there. He's fairly good but he's been a team number one driver in Jordan and Stewart. Most of the times, he wound up doing a good job but it was teammate finishing it or end up in greener pastures. Let's see who was his teammate during that time.

Eddie Irvine (Jordan 92-95) - both were on par with each other but Rubens did won a pole at Spa 94'. Ferrari surprised everyone choosing the Shooter for 96-99. Shooter wound up playing second fiddle (in a ungreen pastures) for Michael Schumacher but manage to win 3 races all coming in 99.

Martin Brundle (Jordan 96; retired)

Jan Magnussen (Stewart 97-mid 98) - completely dominated Jan

Jos Verstrappen (Stewart late 98)

Johnny Herbert (Stewart 99) - Barrichello got the car to win (and some bad breaks) while Herbert struggled until midseason. But at the end Herbert was the one who gave Stewart their first win.

Barrichello first win didn't come until last year at Hockenheim. Two of his then-teammates had wins. Something must of give here between 92-right now. Is he focused to win? Barrichello somehow got bad breaks whenever Michael tried to help him out a win.

[Alapan]

He is not a bad driver - but he seems to lack motivation. Ferrari is happy with him, I think, because he is a very good team driver, and Ferrari as a team is there to win.

[Prostfan]

He is not the worst, but in my private Best-Brazil-driver-competition he comes on 5th place:
1) Senna
2) Piquet
3) Fittipaldi E.
4) Pace
5) Barrichello

[Andre]

Rb, the worst brazilian F1 driver? I don't think so. What about Burti? I'm not sure he still qualifies as a f1 driver, but his first season was pretty weak. He got beaten by Irvine,Jean Alesi and heiz harald frentzen.
Not to mention Tarso Marques and Bernoldi didn't have a stellar year either.
Barrichello isn't the next Senna, IMO, he's not even in Fisichella,Trulli,Coulthard or Motoya's league, but he's a good driver. Besides, I think RB is only the fourth brazilian driver ever to win a Gp. Not bad, for a driver of his abilities.

[Prostfan]

Originally posted by Andre
Besides, I think RB is only the fourth brazilian driver ever to win a Gp. Not bad, for a driver of his abilities.

You have forgotten Carlos Pace!

[Chrissy Boy]

He was in the best car this season, and preformed as bad as he did!

He should give up his seat to Alonso!

I bet RB would be a great test driver for Benetton!

[Andre]

Pace! My bad. Pace is also a one time Gp winner and he was pretty competitive driving for Brabham in the seventies. I think he died on a plane crash in Brazil.Ironically ,like Graham Hill, Pace risked his life almost every week driving at insane speeds but found the end of the road in a airplane.

[Pacific]

I can think of two Brazilians worse than Rubens this season: Burti and Bernoldi.

Now, Burti and Bernoldi are both decent. Enrique definitely has some speed, he just needs to improve his racecraft. It will probably come with experience. I hope Bernoldi stays in F1 because he's worth the spot. (So, as you can tell, I'm hoping Frentzen stays with whatever Prost becomes or Minardi. As most of you know, I like Jos.) Burti...I just hope he recovers completely from his accident.

We can compare anybody to Schumacher, it doesn't matter. As Alonso says, 3 or 4 drivers match Michael is speed, but I still think Michael is the best because of his adaptability to conditions, technical knowledge...basically everything mental and involving mental preparation. Also, Schumacher is VERY dedicated to his fitness. Michael was probably the first ultra professional F1 driver, Senna perhaps being the first with his Press Relations staff before anybody else and Ayrton's intense concentration. Gerhard Berger says Ayrton needed to lighten up a bit and how he taught Ayrton to lighten up a bit. But I think we've learned who won that battle, as far as on the track was concerned. Racing was Ayrton's life, as we all know.

I agree with two of Alonso's picks: Trulli and Fisichella. Both are very fast...but both are suspect in the mental preparation areas and such. Fisichella appears to have taken notice when Wurz kicked his ass at Indy in 2000 based on preparation.

Rubens may even approach Michael's sheer speed, but he doesn't have Michael's mental abilities. (Not necessarily pertaining to intelligence, I explained above) And as some mentioned, I think the massive pressure placed on Rubens after Senna's death was more than he could bear. Rubens should be remembered as a good driver who is excellent in the wet and made the best of the cars he had until he got to Ferrari. His win at Hockenheim was a great drive despite what else happened.

Why Brazilians are always looking for the next Senna...they, as a whole, need to accept each Brazilian driver as he his. Again, the near debacle Brazilian soccer faced was referred to as a "near national disaster" by my international political science teacher, who comes from Germany and noted his own team's near debacle. Rubens had the hopes of an entire nation hinged on him to match somebody who's driving mystique will probably never be matched. (Especially not since we now have so many driver aids)

Brazil has plenty to be proud as far as motor racing is concerned with their drivers in F1, CART, F3000, F3, and even some in the IRL. To me, it doesn't seem as if France is looking for the next Professor. I wonder what Germany will do when Michael retires. The Finns don't seem to place much pressure on their drivers...

Anyway, Rubens deserves respect I think, and it disappoints me to see him constantly slagged because the best driver of this era is beating him.

[Ricardo F1]

Definitely not the worst but certainly no superhero. I know Ferrari and 1b status must have sounded good at the time, but unless he's to become Eddie Irvine he's going to have to get out of Ferrari in 2003 - to be honest he should have decided to go this year and kick Irvine out of Jaguar.

[Tom R]

Maybe this dream is still haunting him...

[molive]

IMO RB is a great driver.

And Ferrari probably thinks the same, otherwise why would they PAY him (a big chunk of dollars) to drive the 2nd best car in the world for three years ina row?

The prob with RB is the huge shoes he had to fill. He's not Senna, but who is?

[miniman]

he is not Senna but who is

Schumacher

[molive]

Originally posted by miniman

Schumacher

oh, yeah, I forgot, there's MS...

[Todd]

Of the 24 Brazilian F1 drivers, only 3 were better than Rubens. Carlos Pace was okay, and 19 Brazillians were not average or better F1 drivers.

[selena]

In fact, I think Rubens is quite a good driver. Not brilliant, just quite good.

IMHO, I think Ayrton Senna is the best Brazilian driver ever and the top of the all-time greats of F1.

[Andre]

Now Ric Bol is posting his anti-Barrichello stuff on english forums. What happened? Got fed up with FG's forum?
I was wondering if there's more people from warmup or autoracing posting here.

[klipywitz]

Originally posted by Ric Bol
I'm brazilian too, but this Rubinho was so terible this year that I couldn't expect nothing about him next year.

On board with a brilliant Ferrari he couldn't win, or made one pole position or one best lap on a race, he is a complete "mental-problem" driver.

for me it's enough, I try to wait Felipe Massa to save brazilians talent in F1.

Saludos

Heheh, I think that Rubens is actually pretty good, though not as good as the yellow helmet -- as said here. However, you really need to pay attentio to what is going on.. He doesnt really have a chance of winning in Ferrari unless Michael lets him. He got screwed a couple of times this year with bad pitstops by the team when he was in position to in, plus a blown engine.

But Ric, how can you claim to be Brazilian if you are signing your thread with "Saludos"? Sounds hispanic to me!

[klipywitz]

Oh! Slowest Brazilian driver? One more thing... Two words for you:

Pedro Diniz.

He was not on the "mobile speed bump" category, like Mazzacane and Nakajima, but he wasnt really fast.

and yeah, Pace was damn fast. Definitively champion material.

[Billy]

Wasn't Diniz only slow in qualifying, but his race pace was OK?

for example, in his career of 99 Grand Prix, Diniz best results in fastest laps were:

Pedro Diniz Fastest Laps
1. 0
2. 0
3. 0
4. 1
5. 4
6. 2
7. 5

when you look at Jarno Trulli's 80-race F1 career, a fast driver whose race pace is somewhat suspect:
Jarno Trulli Fastest Laps
1. 0
2. 0
3. 0
4. 0
5. 2
6. 1
7. 3

[Pacific]

Pedro Diniz displayed some speed towards the end of his career. I think it's a shame Diniz retired, because he wasn't too far away from becoming a really good driver. He just needed to learn to harness the speed he had developed.

I can't really think of a recent Brazilian driver who was really bad. A lot of people will mention Ricardo Rosset, but I feel that Ricardo ended up having things work against him. I'm not saying he was awesome, but Ricardo, a much maligned driver, wasn't as bad as most people think.

Again, I think Brazil has reason to be proud when it comes to their production of open wheel drivers. Why everybody has to be the next Senna. Right now Brazil has a large quantity of quality drivers out there. None of them are of the Ayrton Senna caliber, but, again, few drivers approach Senna (Prost and Schumacher are about it since the beginning of Senna's career. I suppose Mansell in a way...but, for some reason I just don't consider Nigel as good as Senna, Prost, and Schumacher.)

Still though, to me, it looks like Montoya and Raikkonen have some huge upside. Heidfeld will definitely be a good driver, but probably in the same manner that Coulthard is a good driver. It sounds like, going by Peter Sauber, that Raikkonen may have Hakkinen's speed, but has more of a knack of setting up cars. Sauber said that Kimi was helpful from the get go. I tell ya, to me, you have to take notice of dominant go-karters. Which is why Alex Barron SHOULD have a CART drive...UGH.

As far as Brazil goes in the future, we'll have to see I guess. I think, if given the opportunity, Bernoldi could develop into a decent F1 driver and of course I think everybody is looking forward to seeing how Massa does. Not certain about Pizzonia or the Speraficos quite yet.

[MuMu]

He's certainly the worst Ferrari driver ever.

[kenny]

On a personal level I like RB, he's a very nice person, and seems like fun...
but as a driver, I don't think he has 'it'...

and by it, I mean what guys like Fangio, Clark, Senna etc.. had.

[zepp]

Pedro Diniz good? He failed to score a single point last season while Salo scored 7. And Salo isn't a M$ either! Diniz in fact wasn't much slower than Salo, he just was very inconsistent. Pedro learned the ropes of F1 in 5 years....

The only bad thing in Brazilians is that they manage to bring every year new driver to F1. Brazilians seems to have good sponsors because the sport is popular there since Senna I think. I am fed up with Brazilian pay-drivers.

Barrichello I think is very good driver, definitely best Brazilian since Senna but he is not mentally strong enough to become great.

[GreenLantern]

Originally posted by MuMu
He's certainly the worst Ferrari driver ever.

Rubens may not be the best Ferrari driver ever (which has to be Gilles, Schuey or Prost) but he's far from the worst. How about Ivan Capelli in '92, Mika Salo in 99 or Patrick Tambay in the early 80s? Barrichello has 118 points from 34 races - Capelli 3 from 14, Salo 10 from 6 and Tambay 65 from 21. Barrichello has one 3rd place and one fourth in the championships and has helped Ferrari clinch 2 WCCs.
Let's face it, Schuey makes everyone look ordinary in comparison- Rubens had done quite well relative to Eddie Irvine, Johnny Herbert etc earlier in F1 and he was better than DC in F3, if memory serves me right. So it's more a question of Schuey's overwhelming talent and the (maybe intangible but still real) No2 status at Ferrari that has made Rubens look less than spectacular.

I rate Rubens superior to Burti, Bernoldi, Marques, Diniz, Gil de Ferran, Castroneves as far as current Brazilian drivers go. Pizzonia, Massa also, tho' these may have greater potential in the long run.

[Morcheeba]

Riccardo Rosset is the worst Brazillian driver of all time. Hell you can make a strong case that he's the worst F1 driver of all time.

[BuzzingHornet]

you obviously never saw Taki Inoue ;)

[AD]

Didn't Rosset win the F3000 title one year?

[Andre]

Rosset was runner-up in 1995. That year, Vincenzo Sospiri won the tittle. Both were driving for SuperNova. Not a great year for F3000. Actually, the year before was almost as bad, if I'm not mistaken, Jean Christopher Bouillon won the 94 championship.

[zepp]

BTW had Rubens been no.1 driver at Ferrari this year, he would have easily clinched the championship.

RB would have won Malaysia.
RB would have won Austria.
RB would have won Monaco.
RB would have won Hungary.
RB would have won Monza.
RB would have won USA.

So if M$ wasn't RB's teammate and Ferrari had put extra care for Rubens' car, he would have won easily these GP's. Maybe even more because of increasing motivation! He wouldn't seem to be fool at all!

This once again proves how superior Ferrari was in 2001 season.

[klipywitz]

Originally posted by zepp
BTW had Rubens been no.1 driver at Ferrari this year, he would have easily clinched the championship.

RB would have won Malaysia.
RB would have won Austria.
RB would have won Monaco.
RB would have won Hungary.
RB would have won Monza.
RB would have won USA.

So if M$ wasn't RB's teammate and Ferrari had put extra care for Rubens' car, he would have won easily these GP's. Maybe even more because of increasing motivation! He wouldn't seem to be fool at all!

This once again proves how superior Ferrari was in 2001 season.

Yes, I agree with you.

[Billy]

depending on how fast his team mate was, RB might have won Malaysia, Monaco & Hungary. DC would still have won Austria, JPM would still have won Monza, and even with a good engine, RB could not have beaten MH at Indy. Also if RB didn't have such a good team mate, DC might have won Australia & Belgium, JPM might have won Spain, Europe & Japan, and Ralf might have won France. This means that DC might have had 4 wins, RS 4 wins, JPM 4 wins & RB 3 wins, with Mika still with 2 wins for the 2001 season.

[Nikolas Garth]

Originally posted by zepp
BTW had Rubens been no.1 driver at Ferrari this year, he would have easily clinched the championship.

RB would have won Malaysia.
RB would have won Austria.
RB would have won Monaco.
RB would have won Hungary.
RB would have won Monza.
RB would have won USA.

So if M$ wasn't RB's teammate and Ferrari had put extra care for Rubens' car, he would have won easily these GP's. Maybe even more because of increasing motivation! He wouldn't seem to be fool at all!

This once again proves how superior Ferrari was in 2001 season.

Your post doesn't add up, see Billy's for the reasons why.

[red 2]

Ric Bol

I disagree totally with you. Rubens is our best F1 driver now, and look... I´m 38 years old and since 1972 I watch F1, so, Emerson, Pace, Wilsinho, Hoffman, Serra, Alex Ribeiro, Piquet, Senna.... I saw All F1 brazilians driver.

Today I am a big Rubens fan and I think if he is not another Senna he can easily be compared with Moco (Jose Carlos Pace). Moco was very good, fast and a nice guy. Unfortunatelly on the year he could launch his carreer he had a plane accident and dead.

I agree with someone here who said Rubens has some concentration and mind problems, but he´s trying to change it.

We brazilians are funny, we are so critic with our idols.
Now the next ball to be kicked is Guga (Gustavo Kuerten - the tennis player). Two or more years and he will be totally forgoten by the brazilians, like a "persona non grata".

Forza Rubens

[HP]

Rubens can't be that bad. Take MS out of the 2001 season, and what do you get? A championship down to the last race. It's pointless to arguee which points would have gone to which driver without MS, but RB would have been in contention for the WDC.

At the beginning of the season he had some brain fades, but I hope he doesn't repeat them in the 2002 season. His biggest baggage that he had to deal with was certainly Imola 94 and him being rather emotional isn't easy to deal with. He certainly isn't in the same league as Ayrton Senna as a driver, but then you don't get a talent like Senna every year. In other sports its the same. Have we ever someone playing football like Pele again? Not yet, altough I don't mind seeing such talents more often.

In F1, I hope Massa can prove his talent.

[Billy]

Originally posted by HP
Rubens can't be that bad. Take MS out of the 2001 season, and what do you get? A championship down to the last race. It's pointless to arguee which points would have gone to which driver without MS, but RB would have been in contention for the WDC.

If you take out MS from all the race classifications, I think the WDC points score going into Japan would have been 84 for DC, 76 for RB, assuming Ron Dennis made team orders at the Indy GP.

[ffiloseta]

Originally posted by MuMu
He's certainly the worst Ferrari driver ever.

He surely is not, as he won his only GO with Ferrari. That makes him at least as good as Alesi. There is the point that winning took Alesi longer than it did Barrichello and the other is that Alesi's partner was Berger, not Schumacher. Even so, I like Alesi better

[mikedeering]

Originally posted by GreenLantern



Rubens may not be the best Ferrari driver ever (which has to be Gilles, Schuey or Prost) but he's far from the worst. How about Ivan Capelli in '92, Mika Salo in 99 or Patrick Tambay in the early 80s? Barrichello has 118 points from 34 races - Capelli 3 from 14, Salo 10 from 6 and Tambay 65 from 21. Barrichello has one 3rd place and one fourth in the championships and has helped Ferrari clinch 2 WCCs.

How can you list Tambay alongside Capelli and Salo? He was a consistent performer - and carried the Ferrari team during a difficult period in the second half of 82. His win at Hockenheim that year was just what the tem needed after Pironi's accident. Tambay has his own health problems that season with his back, but was still a vital part in Ferrari's WCC in 1982 and again in 1983.

Scoring 65 points in 21 races in the early 80s was pretty solid - the cars were far more unreliable then, and the grid generally more competitve - there were 12 winners in 1982 for example. It works out at over 3 points a start. You can't compare it to now, where Rubens is guaranteed 6th place just for turning up - since McLaren and Williams are his only rivals. Add in Williams and McLaren reliability problems, and Rubens is then pretty much guaranteed 3rd or 4th every race.

[padovani]

Originally posted by Ric Bol
I'm brazilian too, but this Rubinho was so terible this year that I couldn't expect nothing about him next year.

On board with a brilliant Ferrari he couldn't win, or made one pole position or one best lap on a race, he is a complete "mental-problem" driver.

for me it's enough, I try to wait Felipe Massa to save brazilians talent in F1.

Saludos

Somehow being 3rd in the F1 WDC amounts to nothing in Brazil.

He may not be on MSchu or Senna league but even in the worst accounts he is at least one of the top 10 drivers. And easily the best active brazilian driver.

And if you want to wait for Massa, well, what can I say? But please remember that Barrichello was 'a Massa' in his F3 days (very talented driver, signed directly by a mid-field team, skipping the 'Minardi/Prost/Arrows' stage). So it may turn out that Massa end up becoming 'a Barrichello'. For me it would be great, but I don't know about you.

[klipywitz]

Originally posted by padovani


Somehow being 3rd in the F1 WDC amounts to nothing in Brazil.

He may not be on MSchu or Senna league but even in the worst accounts he is at least one of the top 10 drivers. And easily the best active brazilian driver.

And if you want to wait for Massa, well, what can I say? But please remember that Barrichello was 'a Massa' in his F3 days (very talented driver, signed directly by a mid-field team, skipping the 'Minardi/Prost/Arrows' stage). So it may turn out that Massa end up becoming 'a Barrichello'. For me it would be great, but I don't know about you.

[Tom R]

Solid stuff, mikedeering

[molive]

Originally posted by padovani


Somehow being 3rd in the F1 WDC amounts to nothing in Brazil.

He may not be on MSchu or Senna league but even in the worst accounts he is at least one of the top 10 drivers. And easily the best active brazilian driver.

And if you want to wait for Massa, well, what can I say? But please remember that Barrichello was 'a Massa' in his F3 days (very talented driver, signed directly by a mid-field team, skipping the 'Minardi/Prost/Arrows' stage). So it may turn out that Massa end up becoming 'a Barrichello'. For me it would be great, but I don't know about you.

[Ric Bol]

Originally posted by Andre
Now Ric Bol is posting his anti-Barrichello stuff on english forums. What happened? Got fed up with FG's forum?
I was wondering if there's more people from warmup or autoracing posting here.

Beleza Andre,

Sorry for the time, but you know, I need to show for everybody how Rubinho (little Rubens) is bad, it's a really cruzada!

Saludos

[Ric Bol]

Originally posted by klipywitz
Oh! Slowest Brazilian driver? One more thing... Two words for you:

Pedro Diniz.

He was not on the "mobile speed bump" category, like Mazzacane and Nakajima, but he wasnt really fast.

and yeah, Pace was damn fast. Definitively champion material.

Hehehe, very smart! Klipywitz.

I'm brazilian but I live at the middle of the world, Ecuador!!!
Sou brasileiro, mas vivo na metade do mundo, Equador!!!
Soy brasileño, pero vivo en la mitad del mundo, Ecuador!!!

Saludos