Highlights

Piquet: Massa is not another Barrichello

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-04-28 10:40

Formula One champion Nelson Piquet said in an interview to a Brazilian magazine, released on Friday, that Ferrari team racer Felipe Massa is not another Rubens Barrichello.

During the time hePiquet: Massa is not another Barrichello competed for Ferrari, Barrichello was severely criticized in Brazil for not achieving good results, at least as expected from a possible successor of Ayrton Senna, who died in a race in 1994, after winning three F1 championships (1988,1990 and 1991).

Piquet, also a holder of three championship titles (1981, 1983 and 1987), was one of those critics of Barrichello, who was believed to be only playing the supporting role in Ferrari to seven-time winner Michael Schumacher, retired last year.

According to Piquet, whose son is a test driver for F1 team Renault, Massa has a dominant car in his hands and has to keep doing what he has been doing in the tracks.

The Brazilian champion added that the 26-year-old pilot regarded as Schumacher's successor in Ferrari, or the real Senna's successor in Brazil is talented and certainly not another Barrichello.

Massa won the latest F1 race, in Bahrain on April 15. Barrichello is currently racing for team Honda and has not scored a point in the 2007 championship yet.