12/07/2009
NEWS STORY
Already losing ground to Red Bull on track, Brawn now faces internal strife as Rubens Barrichello publicly criticises the British team.
Speaking after today's German GP which saw him finish sixth, Rubens Barrichello launched an astonishing attack on his team, effectively accusing it of deliberately wrecking his race.
"I feel sorry for myself and I feel sorry for the team," a clearly emotional Barrichello told British F1 broadcaster BBC after the race.
"To be very honest with you," he continued, "I wish I could get on the plane and go home right now. I don't want to talk to anybody in the team because I don't want to understand, there will be a lot of 'blah blah blah' and I don't want to hear that.
"I am not saying that the team are favouring anyone," he added, "I am just saying that it was a good show of how to lose a race today."
The Brazilian's main gripe relates to a botched fuel rig which, having failed to deliver the correct amount of fuel, necessitated an extra stop, thereby preventing his scoring a possible podium finish.
Later, having discussed the matter with team boss Ross Brawn, Barrichello appeared to have calmed down, though not much.
"I have spoken to the team and the view is quite the same," he told reporters. "There was a mistake in both of our pit-stops and we lost a lot of time in a race where we struggled to get temperature in the tyres.
"We would have finished third," he added. "I didn't say that I was going to win the race, I meant that I lost a lot of points and I was extremely frustrated, especially as I am fighting for a championship.
"The team agreed they basically had a problem and apologised for that. It's not my intention to get into a fight with the team as I want to win the championship, so now I need to put my head down and work. At the end of the day I can quit at the end of the year if I want to but now I want to get on with racing."
Despite the verbal attack, Ross Brawn remained as diplomatic as ever, admitting: "Rubens has a point, in that it wasn't a great race for us. We probably tried too hard to compensate for a lack of performance.
"We tried three stops and then we had a fuel rig problem and his radio wasn't great in the race. He was struggling with it so he wasn't getting all the information. He didn't really have a full picture of everything that was going on.
"I think when he sits down and looks at the numbers he'll realise we were too slow to win the race. We just weren't quick enough. Now he has the facts and he understands what happened, he's fine. He had the 11th fastest time of the race, you can't win a race with that speed."
Asked if Barrichello will be taken to task for his public criticism of his team, Brawn said he would watch the interview again before deciding on whether to take action.
"I'll understand the whole situation first," he said. "I want to understand the whole picture, what he thought, what he said and we will then deal with it internally.
"Rubens has been a very important member of the team and he has stuck with us through very some difficult times, he has a lot of loyalty to the team and that is not something you destroy with a few frustrated words after a race."