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Budapest's Q&A with Rubens Barrichello

Posted on Friday 29 Jul 2011

RUBENS BARRICHELLO

PRE-HUNGARY Q&A

Rubens has had many dramatic races at the Hungaroring. He won at the track in 2002 and was almost squeezed into the pitwall by Michael Schumacher in 2010. Here are his thoughts ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

What are your thoughts on this year’s Hungarian Grand Prix?

I like this track and, having won here in the past, I’m looking forward to Sunday’s race. The DRS should make overtaking a little easier than in the past, so I hope we can have a better weekend.

Will tyre degradation be a factor once again?

It’s always a factor. On tracks where there isn’t any grip on a Friday, we go quite well initially because we have the grip straight away. But we don’t make progress and the others do, so we go backwards.

You ran without KERS at the Nurburgring. What did you learn?

It was tough, defending all the time. It was like going into the boxing ring and knowing that the other guy is stronger than you. You can punch, but you break your hand because you don’t have any gloves on!

Unfortunately, my race finished early so I wasn’t able to see if the tyre degradation improved. But what I also learnt is that even if KERS is worth only 0.3s per lap, it’s still worth having.

Did you enjoy the KERS experiment?

I like to test. When the team asked who wanted to race at the Nurburgring without KERS, I volunteered because I knew it would help the team with the weight distribution of next year’s car.

Hopes going into the second half of the season?

If we don’t improve the fundamental problems of the car, we’ll score points, but not in the range that we deserve. It’s not down to a lack of effort because the team is bringing loads of new things to each race, but they’re not working. Last year, the things we brought worked and we were able to improve so much more.

What are your plans for the summer break?

I’ll be going back to Brazil. The kids have different holidays in Brazil to the kids in Europe; they only have July off, so I’ll be on holiday while they’re back at school. I’ll be doing the school run every day! I love that.

Credit: Williams F1 (www.williamsf1.com)