The Man Behind The Champion
Today I'd like to show you another side of the well known and famous formula 1 race that you may have never thought about.
I bet you all know Michael Schumacher, the seven time German Formula 1 champion. He's a legend basically and made history as he's the only Formula 1 racer who won seven World Championships, five consecutively. He made history, no question about it.
I've been watching him regularly as I thought he was very talented and his success confirmed it. F1 drives come and go all the time, new ones appear all the time, win some and then disappear, that's normal as success depends on lots of things and talent is just one, not always the most important one. You have to have support and luck as well to get accepted by a good team and then there are technical things that can make or brake a race. He was statistically the greatest driver the sport has ever seen.
They say behind every successful man there's a woman. It is a cliche maybe, or not, I guess it depends on each case. In Formula 1 I believe it's safe to say that behind every successful driver there's a whole team. However, the man behind the champion, that helped him a lot is called Rubens Barichello, his teammate from Ferrari.
He started his Formula 1 carrier in 1993 and joined Ferrari in 2000. Michael Schumacher joined Ferrari in 1996. Back when the two were racing, I was watching most of the races and it was visible with the naked eye. Michael Schumacher was number one and Barichello only second. This was decided and that hierarchy had to be maintained at all costs. This meant during the race Schumacher was in front and Barichello behind him had the duty of holding off everyone behind them in order for Schumacher to win.
Why did he do it? I don't know, can only guess. Usually there are two methods to convince someone to do such a thing. One is paying the person off. He may have got a bigger salary than he would have but he was told he has to have Schumacher's back. The other is blackmail or threat, both are ugly words I know. he may have been told he can only get in if he does that, otherwise there's no contract to sigh for him.
These are only suppositions as if there was such a thing, he most likely had to sign a confidentiality agreement and can't talk about it but then again, this is not something you tell in public or in private.
Either way, he was capable of much more and proved it every time Schumacher's car broke down. He could have been a champion in different conditions.
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He was definitely the number two driver at Ferrari and was there to support Schumacher. I am sure he was very well compensated for taking a back seat as they had drivers orders in that team. Schumacher was the main driver and Barichello had to listen. Some drivers would never put up with this as ambition would get in the way.
Maybe he had less self confidence or needed the money, I don't know what was his reasons for accepting a deal like this but I think he was capable of more.