Rubens Barrichello
Rubens Barrichello started 326 Formula 1 Grands Prix — more than any other driver in history. He is also probably the most openly emotional driver in the sport's history, crying freely at race results, dedications, and moments of personal significance throughout a nineteen-year career. Away from the track he is a devoted family man who became a karting champion in his fifties.
Rubens Barrichello holds the Formula 1 record for most race starts (326), a total accumulated over a nineteen-year career that included sustained periods as Michael Schumacher's teammate at Ferrari — a role that required him to be fast enough to be useful but slow enough, on occasion, to serve a larger team strategy. The 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, where Barrichello was instructed to let Schumacher past in the final metres having led the entire race, generated the sport's most infamous team order controversy and a public booing of the podium ceremony that Ferrari clearly had not anticipated.
Barrichello is Brazilian to his core — warm, expressive, openly emotional in a sport that tends to reward emotional containment. He has spoken about the difficulty of managing his feelings in environments that did not particularly value them, and about the particular challenge of maintaining self-belief across a career in which he was, for long stretches, required to subordinate his own championship ambitions to someone else's. His retirement came at Brawn GP, Williams, and finally in IndyCar, where he continues to compete in Brazilian stock car racing.
Away from the track, Barrichello is one of the most engaged former F1 drivers on social media and in the Brazilian motorsport community. He has been involved in driver coaching and television commentary, and has spoken about the emotional journey of watching his son Eduardo begin his own racing career. The family connection to motorsport running into a second generation is something Barrichello clearly finds meaningful — though he has also been careful to support Eduardo's independence rather than projecting his own career onto him.
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Barrichello's emotional transparency was genuine and consistent. He cried when he won, cried when he was moved, cried at dedications, and cried when he retired. Far from being criticised for it, this made him one of the most beloved drivers in F1 history — a counterpoint to the emotional guardedness that most athletes perform. Brazilian fans in particular cherished this quality.
After retiring from F1, Barrichello returned to racing in karts — the discipline in which all racing drivers begin their careers. He competed seriously rather than for show, entering proper karting championships and demonstrating that decades of F1 experience translate directly back to the basics. He remains competitive in karting events and clearly enjoys it enormously.
Swimming was part of Barrichello's fitness regime throughout his racing career and continues to be. Brazil's beach culture is part of his background, and swimming — both in pools and in open water — has been a consistent part of his active life.
Barrichello's first F1 victory came at the 2000 German Grand Prix, driving for Ferrari. He dedicated the win to Ayrton Senna, his Brazilian hero who had died six years earlier at Imola. The dedication was heartfelt — Senna had been enormously important to Barrichello as an inspiration and as a connection between their generations of Brazilian racing. The tribute was widely watched and moved many to tears, including Barrichello himself.
During his years as Schumacher's teammate at Ferrari (2000–2005), Barrichello was subject to team orders that prioritised Schumacher on multiple occasions. The most famous was the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, where he was told to let Schumacher past on the final lap of a race Barrichello was leading. He complied but expressed his unhappiness clearly on the podium. He has spoken about the experience with both understanding and frank acknowledgement that it was painful.
Barrichello competed in Brazil's Stock Car Pro Series after leaving F1, continuing his professional racing career in domestic Brazilian motorsport. He was popular with Brazilian fans in the series and competitive, winning races in a category very different from Formula 1. The participation demonstrated that his love of racing was intrinsic rather than dependent on the specific category.