It’s the hot story coming out of last weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix; the fantastic crash by Rubens Barrichello.
It is a pretty amazing crash when you consider that cars are going somewhere in the neighborhood of 120mph into this turn. An investigation into the crash by Williams has determined that a loose manhole cover was the culprit. As Barrichello came around turn 2 he hit the cover which flipped up and hit his left rear tire causing him to lose control of the car. In the video you see Rubens throw his $50,000 steering wheel onto the track. This is actually a breach in FIA regulations as the steering wheel must be reconnected after abandoning a stricken car. However, Rubens Barrichello, the man who has an excuse for absolutely everything as nothing is ever his fault stated:
“I threw the steering wheel because I wanted to get out of the car as soon as possible. After the shunt I was facing the wrong side of the track and the car was on fire.”
First of all, I didn’t see any flames shooting from the vehicle. Secondly, why couldn’t he have simply placed the steering wheel on top of the car, gotten out and tossed it back into the cockpit if he didn’t have time to reconnect it? Instead, he had a typical Rubens baby fit and tossed the steering wheel onto the track and into traffic without a second thought regarding the safety of the other drivers. Rubens Barrichello of all people should know the danger of debris on the track. It was a spring that came off his car last year during the Hungarian Grand Prix that hit Felipe Massa in the head sending the Brazilian hurtling off the track unconscious. Massa required brain surgery and subsequently missed the rest of the 2009 F1 season.
In this video you see the Hispania Racing Team car of Karun Chandhok run over Barrichello’s discarded steering wheel and drive off with it:
The steering wheel finally came dislodged before Chandhouk entered the tunnel only to be run over again by his teammate, Bruno Senna. Luckily, neither driver expeirenced any mishaps.
You may also remember the famous “blah blah” incident where Barrichello lashed out at his team during the 2009 German Grand Prix after he went from first to sixth place:
There was a great show from the team today of how to lose a race. I did all I could today, I got first at the first corner, and they made me lose the race.
If we keep going like this we’re going to lose both championships. To be very honest with you I wish I could get on a plane and just go home, because when I go to the team afterwards there will be a lot of ‘blah, blah, blah’ and I don’t want to hear that right now.
Formula 1 is generally depicted as the crème de la crème of motorsport; a gentlemen’s sport if you will. So, why does Rubens stomp around, throw fits and continually make a horse’s ass out of himself? Sometimes errors are made in team orders, sometimes incidents occur that are the fault of the driver. Never once have I heard Rubens take responsibility for what has happened on the track. And to publicly lash out at the team, whoever was at fault, is quite unheard of.
I’m not a Lewis Hamilton fan mainly because he does his fair share of whining. However, Rubens has just knocked Hamilton out of the “least favorite driver” list for me. Perhaps Rubens should take a lesson from Fernando Alonso. Alonso crashed his car during Saturday practice at Monaco, causing such damage that he missed qualifying and had to start the race from the pit lane. Pretty upsetting and frustrating especially considering that he is considered to be one of the top drivers to win the championship. He admitted to his crash being due to driver error. No whining. He simply pointed out that Michael Schumacher had started from the pit lane in 2005 and ended up in fifth place at the end of the race. Alonso managed sixth.
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