"You can be a nice guy off the track but if you're a nice guy in Formula 1, you will never win anything"
Ayrton Senna.
After Schumacher pulled that tough, desperate move on poor old Barrichello, I wondered: was this a return to what, week in and week out we hear Formula 1 is not anymore? There was some real hate going on there, some actual bad blood.
Of course, one view is that Schumacher has lost the plot, that a real champion would have know he had no chance in that situation, with the Brazilian on fresh soft tires behind him and moved over gracefully. It's a valid point, but not if you are going to complain that Formula 1 has become too sterile or if you know how a real racer's mind works.
Schumacher was certainly thinking about the final points position but, I'm guessing, he also remembered how Barrichello has spent the past couple of years trying to convince anyone who would listen how he was really faster than the German, if only he had been allowed to win. Barrichello even went as far as calling Schumacher, gay. I'm sure that was all misting inside the Mercedes driver's red helmet and he wasn't going to give up easily.
Barrichello for his part was probably thinking about how in his native Brazil, he's seen as a nice guy but a bit of a whiner, how there have been articles down there saying Brazilian autosport used to be Senna, Fittipaldi, Piquet, but now it's Barrichello, Massa and...Piquet jr
Yet Rubens had balls, he didn't lift and went through, he might want to thank Schumacher for giving him the chance to show he's got what it takes..
But he can't win, the final insult was that both Schumacher and Ross Brawn after the race said "This is Formula 1, what's the problem? There was enough room, otherwise he would not have gotten through..." Score on for the grouchy old man making Rubens once again look like a complainer.
Of course the FIA didn't see it that way, probably the safe way to go.
Videos after the jump
