FRANCHITTI ON BARRICHELLO IN INDYCAR

INDYCAR: Drivers Keen On Competing Against Barrichello

Adding Rubens Barrichello to the IndyCar Series would be a promotional coup, but its top drivers are more interested in going head-to-head with the F1 veteran.

Marshall Pruett | Posted February 28, 2012

It’s hard to get a group of drivers to agree on the same thing at any one time. But veterans and young guns alike are on the same page when it comes to wanting 19-year Formula One veteran Rubens Barrichello in the IZOD IndyCar Series, and the reasons are varied.

Many look forward to the exposure he’ll bring, but the most serious among them relish the challenge of taking on a driver with more than 300 F1 starts to his credit.

The good news is they’ll find out whether the 11-time F1 race winner will setup camp in America at KV Racing with Tony Kanaan and E.J. Viso during a formal press conference expected to take place on Thursday.

Until they get their answer, the best in the series will continue to express admiration for Barrichello and to encourage him to come and play in their sandbox.

“Rubens coming into the series would be all positive,” said Dario Franchitti, the reigning, four-time IndyCar Series champion. “It would be massive, massive for the series. If you think about what he brings…when he was in a car that could win like the Brawn or the Ferrari, he won. Although he usually wasn’t allowed to win in the Ferrari (against Michael Schumacher),” he said with a laugh.

“But he’s that good. Besides all that, forget about driver skill for a minute. He’d be great for the series. He brings that international recognition as well. It’s only a positive. He ups the level of competition in the field yet again. Besides the guys we know already who are tough to beat, he’d add another major name to have to fight against.”

Barrichello, 39, left his native Brazil in his teens to work his way up the European open-wheel ladder where he and Franchitti first met.

“We’ve actually known each other since 1987,” Franchitti continued. “I did my first junior world karting championships in ‘87, and I think it was his last…he was a few years older than me, and I definitely want to get that in there,” the 37-year-old Scot said with another hearty laugh.

With Franchitti having asserted himself as the best the IndyCar Series has to offer over the past few years, he says the chance to race against one of F1’s most formidable drivers would be a welcome opportunity.

“To see how his career went and to come back now to race with him in IndyCar would be phenomenal,” he said. “I’m really excited about the possibility of it. And he’s such an exceptional guy. Just a warm, kind person, which I don’t think people always associate with your average Formula One driver.

“Having him here--it’s good for KV, it’s good for Tony [Kanaan], it’s good for everybody. I’m sure I won’t be saying that on the days I’m getting beaten by him, but that’s part of the fun of it. Going out to try and beat these guys week in and week out is the challenge, and Rubens is a guy you’d have to contend with.”

36-year-old Helio Castroneves is another who would like to race against Barrichello in the IndyCar Series, and sees F1’s ironman as a source of inspiration.

“Let me tell you a little bit of the history between me and Rubens,” said Team Penske’s three-time Indy 500 winner. “I only raced with him once in karts in 1988. He was already announced as the next big name, and I was just starting out. We only did some exhibition races, but his passion is what stood out to me then. Even when he didn’t have the best equipment in Formula One, that passion you would always see.

“Of course you have to have talent, and knowledge and all those other things, but passion is what makes you [fix] all your weak spots to achieve what you want. I see him now, and I see that same passion from when we were both very young.”

Castroneves has also been moved by his countryman’s enduring fire.

“I admire him, because, well let’s put it this way: He’s comfortable in his life and he could have a wonderful life away from racing if he wanted to retire, but he actually wants to be involved with racing and to keep going,” he said. “That inspires me. I am the same way; I want to keep driving for as long as I can, and that’s why I’m happy he’s over here testing with us and thinking about continuing. I look forward to racing with him for a long time, I hope.”

Will Power, Castroneves’ Team Penske teammate, makes frequent mentions of wanting the best drivers in the world to race with, and would love nothing more than to test his mettle against Barrichello.

“I think it would be great to have Rubens in the series,” he said. “I think all of the drivers feel the same. Someone who has so much experience in Formula One, and success; to have him in this series is just good for us. And I think he’d enjoy the racing with all the different types of circuits we run on.”

Even past Indy car stars like Gil de Ferran are looking forward to seeing Barrichello head stateside.

Like Barrichello, the two-time CART champion and 2003 Indy 500 winner rose through the ranks in Europe at the same time as “Rubinho,” but shifted his focus towards America just as Barrichello was finding his feet in Formula One.

After he retired as a driver, the two worked together at the Honda F1 team where Barrichello drove from 2006-2008 and de Ferran served as sporting director. Speaking as a former rival-turned-team member, de Ferran has nothing but praise to offer.

“I raced against him and I've worked with him at Honda,” he said. “He has superb skills. He's a very skillful driver. I think very much in the mode of Emerson Fittipaldi. And he's got intelligence and experience to figure things out quickly in IndyCar. I would expect him to do very well.”

Although de Ferran has been out of the cockpit full-time since the end of the 2009 season, his competitive instincts have yet to diminish.

“I can tell you, if I was still driving in the series I would be really looking forward to Rubens being there because I always felt that the higher regard you hold your competitors, the sweeter, the bigger reward when you beat them,” he said. “In my career I was always looking for racing against the best people I could find. It makes the competition all the more meaningful. The competition is what defines you. And when you have a guy like Rubens coming into the series, that level goes up.”

De Ferran attended the 2011 F1 season finale at Interlagos in Brazil, and noted that despite spending nearly two decades in the series, Barrichello hasn’t lost a step.

“From what I could see, he lost none of his speed from when he was 18 years old,” he said. “The guy is super fast. When he’s at his best, to me, you can compare him to one of the top drivers in the history of the sport. You have a driver--for almost 20 years--that has been on the sharp end of what is considered to be the highest series in the world.”

The impact Barrichello could have on IndyCar’s audience would also be just as impressive.

Using Twitter as an informal measuring stick for media reach, Barrichello has amassed 1.4 million followers. Compare that to Danica Patrick’s 534,000 followers, and with Barrichello on the grid, IndyCar might have not have the major publicity crisis some feared would happen with Patrick’s departure to NASCAR.

“I think Rubens, internationally, will do a lot for the sport,” said Franchitti, who drove with Patrick at Andretti-Green Racing. “Internally, I think other drivers will expand to fill the gap. That’s the way I see it. Danica obviously brought a huge amount of recognition to the sport, and I think the sport of IndyCar also allowed her to be in the position she’s in. That was the launching pad for everything she’s done off the track.

"I think you’ll see other drivers fill that space she occupied, but Rubens will add to that quite a lot.”

Along with Franchitti, Castroneves isn’t concerned by a potential vacuum caused by Patrick, and thinks that having one of F1’s most recognizable drivers in the paddock will add a dimension that’s been missing from Indy car racing for some time.

“I would say whoever is a Danica fan is going to follow her wherever she goes,” he said. “Now, Danica surely brought attention to the series--whatever she did. For me, I don’t think it’s about losing any fans, but I do feel Rubens, being a world name in motorsport, could bring a bigger audience. That’s people from England, Brazil, America, Italy or wherever. We are going to gain more fans because of that, but more than that, we’re going to gain a Formula One driver.

“Nigel Mansell, Emerson Fittipaldi, [Alex] Zanardi and so many others switched to Indy cars in the past, so I think this is another big thing for us. Maybe not all the fans here knew who those guys were, but soon they did and they became very popular and famous here. I think it will be like this for Rubens for the people that don’t know him, but I think he’s going to make fans interested and we’ll get more people at the races.”

With Franchitti, Power and Castroneves anticipating what Barrichello can bring in terms of competitiveness and marketability, one member of their fraternity is looking forward to what he can learn from the soft-spoken driver.

“I have my personal reasons for wanting him as my teammate,” said Tony Kanaan. “It’s not just because he’s a dear friend and all of that. I’ve witnessed throughout his career the teammates that he’s raced against and that he’s beaten. For me, at this stage of my career, I think he would help me to step things up and take things to the next level. It would be nice to get new feedback, new impressions and what can be done better.”

Kanaan is also hopeful that with someone of Barrichello’s stature and appeal in the series, the flow of young Brazilian talent into the Mazda Road To Indy, and eventually the IndyCar Series, will resume.

“The tradition has always been for Brazilians to try and go to Formula One; what happened back in the day with me and Helio and Gil was a bit different, but there’s a lot of good young Brazilians like (2011 British F3 champion) Felipe Nasr who are coming up trying to make it,” he explained. “If Rubens comes, it’s going to be an extra boost for the young kids to look to IndyCar. It’s a cycle that we are going through.

"It’s not that we don’t have talent; it also takes money, but we’d love to see some doors open for the next generation to come here.”

Thursday’s press conference will reveal whether IndyCar will have a new star to build into its marketing plans and, as Castroneves joked, whether its drivers will have a challenging new puzzle to solve.

“I wish him…not too well…,” he said playfully, "because he’s going to be a tough one to beat, but I think everyone will be thankful if we can have him in our series.”