Having taken a day off on Monday, after coming third in the Spanish Grand Prix, Rubens Barrichello was back at work, testing at Fiorano for a two day session beginning on Tuesday.

The Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro driver began by reflecting on Sunday’s race. “It was an exciting first corner,” laughed the Brazilian. “Me and Michael did not want it to end in tears, but I had to try and pass him. It shows that, as much as I respect Michael, we are there to race and it is more fun like this. After that, I was a little bit surprised at my pace in the race, when I was quick, but not always at the right time. There were a few laps when I had the best package out there. I had sacrificed some qualifying speed in order to have the best set-up for the race. So I was a bit surprised that it did not work out as I had planned.”

The Scuderia has done less testing over the winter in Barcelona than the other teams, but Barrichello felt this definitely not the cause of his erratic race pace. “We certainly did not suffer because of the fact we chose not to do much testing in Barcelona,” he maintained. “You only have to look at some of the other teams who ran extensively at this track and were then in difficulty over the race weekend. Barcelona is good for testing and for sorting out the car, but in ten years of testing at Barcelona, never have I gone there for a race weekend and not found the track to be different. It might be quicker or slower, but it is always different.”

Both Jean Todt and Ross Brawn emphasised last weekend that, although the F2003-GA had done plenty of testing, including race distances, an actual race weekend would always throw up a different set of challenges. Barrichello agrees with this assessment. “The learning process was going on all the time,” he revealed. “And in my view it will be going on for a while and we will learn something new every time the car is on the track. But we are starting from a fantastic base, which is already very quick as can be seen from my fastest race lap in Barcelona.”

Barrichello also admitted that the opposition was stronger than in 2002. “There is more competition this year,” he said. “Last year, if the other two top teams had some problems, it made life easier for us, but we saw in Barcelona that the Renaults also have an impressive pace. It’s nice for the spectators!”

When attending an FIA press conference in Barcelona, Rubens was asked for his views on some of the new regulation proposals announced that weekend. At the time, the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro man had not studied them in detail, but he did feel strongly on one general point. “As I said, we the drivers should be involved along with the team principals in discussing these regulations. After all, we are the ones who have to drive the cars. We can give a first-hand opinion of some of the proposals, the on-track effect of which the rule makers might not understand fully.”