Michael Schumacher’s former teammate spills on what the F1 legend is really like
<p>A former Ferrari teammate has lifted the lid on what it was like to work alongside Formula 1 legend Michael Schumacher.</p>
<p>Rubens Barrichello was Schumacher’s right-hand man for six seasons and explained what it was like working alongside him.</p>
<p>Drivers know there’s a hierarchy within teams and despite being on the same team, drivers can sometimes be competitive with the men they call teammates.</p>
<p>Barrichello says that Schumacher wasn’t always a supportive and open teammate.</p>
<p>“I’ve always made friends and had a great relationship between my teammates. I do (include Michael), but he was never supportive … it’s not the right word. He would never be there to offer help so I never asked because there are teammates to go and ask,” Barrichello said on F1’s <em><a rel="noopener" href="https://youtu.be/3MvXyr7p4_E" target="_blank">Beyond the Grid</a></em> podcast.</p>
<p>“For example Eddie Irvine, you ask him and he says ‘I don’t know which gear I take that corner’. I got p****d one day because I couldn’t understand how the hell he doesn’t know what gear and he doesn’t really know, he just doesn’t think, he did it naturally.</p>
<p>“So you have to learn people with Michael it was different, he was a bit naive in a way that he worked his way.”</p>
<p>He also spoke about meetings with just Schumacher, even though they were a part of the same team.</p>
<p>“So many times I grabbed my chair because the meeting was already finished and then they started another meeting with just Michael there and I said hmm this is funny.</p>
<p>“I took my chair and I just would sit there, say nothing and just stay there.”</p>
<p>Eventually, Barrichello said that figuring out that the team was essentially Schumacher’s didn’t change his own ambitions towards the championships.</p>
<p>“Eventually I felt that (it was Schumacher’s team), eventually I felt that the team was his,” he said.</p>
<p>“It never dropped my emotions, seeing as I had to overcome my emotions to get better and to race against the best it wasn’t that ‘oh ok this engine was for him and this engine is for Rubens’.</p>
<p>“I think they’d done such a good job on the year 2000 already that the engines had the same amount of power, but one is special and would have a choice to go to Michael but I think at the end of the day it was not a problem for me to race the same car as him.”</p>
<p>Barrichello said that the thing that set Schumacher from the rest was his courage at high speeds.</p>
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<p>“He was super, super on high speed like very courageous. The way I drove on the low speed was actually I was taking more speed out of it than him,” he explained.</p>
<p>“I remember so many times Ross (Brawn) telling him that he had too do something different. I became so much better on the high speed because of him.</p>
<p>“I think we both went to another level of pushing each other so it was good.</p>
<p>“It’s not that easy to make Michael Schumacher go to another level.</p>
<p>“Mine had to be mental. How do you go to a racetrack knowing that you have a B option of a pit stop and this and that and still be ready to win?”</p>
<p>Barrichello said that he would have walked away with “at least one” championship had the time been split equally between Schumacher and himself.</p>
<p>“If you put myself against Michael, I think it was a 70-30 split, lets put it this way he was better than me.</p>
<p>“He was more complete, and Michael didn’t have bad days, whenever he had a bad day or he was vulnerable the team around him prepared him to be back up. They knew how to affect him positively.</p>
<p>“But if it was run straight, just the same strategy for everyone I might have won at least one championship … at least one.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t make a difference now, it’s part of the past. I didn’t and I’m happy with that because I tried.”</p>
