Rubens is ?really special? ? Williams
Date published : 07 Apr 2010 - 16:54:48
Williams technical director Sam Michael says Rubens Barrichello has been a revelation to him and the team this year.The 37-year-old veteran joined the Oxfordshire-based squad this season, swapping seats with the Mercedes-bound Nico Rosberg, and has scored points in two of the three races held so far.Michael says Barrichello's wealth of experience and the quality of his technical feedback have already proved huge assets to Williams as it attempts to make progress with the FW32.
The guy's got so much experience and that helps [rookie team-mate] Nico [Hulkenberg] as well, said Michael over the Sepang weekend.It's still early in the season, but I have to say he's one of the best drivers I've ever worked with.He's got such a big database - for every two camber change tests Nico's done, Rubens has done 100 of them. And they may be across different cars and different platforms and different tyres, but he just knows what's important to make the car go fast.
He's had a massive input to the development of the car.That was big input from Rubens. Michael says Barrichello is operating at a higher level than any driver he has worked with during his time with Williams.It's an amazing thing to not have that for a while, and then have that again, he said.To be honest, I haven't worked with anyone as good as him since working with [Heinz-Harald] Frentzen and [Damon] Hill when I was back at Jordan 12 years ago.
That's the last time I worked with guys of his calibre, he really is so impressive.We thought he would be good, but he has far exceeded our expectations of what he would be like - and that goes for everyone in the team, Adam [Parr], Patrick [Head], Frank [Williams] and myself.The guy's just on a really special level. He added: The thing that's probably surprised us the most is that we think 'how's this guy not been a multiple world champion, Because he is better than some guys who are world champions.
There's always a honeymoon stage, but so far it's a perfect partnership.Michael said Barrichello's savvy and experience were particularly valuable during the rain-hit Sepang qualifying session last Saturday.Rubens was very useful - his calls on tyres were all correct, he said.I was panicking going into Q2 with both cars on intermediates, it was only [Vitaly] Petrov, Michael [Schumacher], Rubens and Nico on inters - the other cars were all on wets, so I was pretty worried about it.When Rubens first went out of the pit lane, he said 'damn, it is very wet' and then he got to turn seven and said 'we're definitely on the right tyre'.So he knew that on his out-lap, and I was comfortable.
