Rubens Barrichello Rewarding For Cosworth in European Grand Prix
Finally, Cosworth, the London based engineering company has a reason to celebrate. Rubens Barrichello the Williams’ driver ended at fourth place in the European Grand Prix held last Sunday in Valencia, Spain. The team had been really jubilant as this is their best finish of the season as well as the best finish of a Cosworth-powered driver in five years. Previously in the year 2005, it was David Coulthard who also finished at fourth place for Red Bull at the European Grand Prix, in Nurburgring.
As the race ended Cosworth’s F1 General Manager for Business Unit, Mark Gallagher, talked to the official website of Formula One expressing his delight and satisfaction at the remarkable finish of Barrichello in the race.
He said that Cosworth is immensely pleased with Rubens Barrichello’s finish as the team did not expect him to be able beat Ferrari and Mercedes drivers that smoothly. He told that the driver gave a very strong performance right from the start of the race and was able to safeguard his position against the roaring Renault driver, Robert Kubica who finally ended at fourth place. He was pleased to announce that the performance of both the William drivers was excellent and allowed the team to cover another step forward towards making the team recognized as one of the competitive teams of Formula One Caravan.
Barrichello’s team mate, Nico Hulkenberg had to retire from the race due to the failure of exhaust system. Nico had been able to show a good performance at the qualifying sessions and also he was promising during the initial laps of the final race day, till he had to retire.
Following the race the Williams said that the failure to the exhaust would be investigated completely to avoid such a thing in future. Mark said that at the same time when the team celebrates Barrichello’s success they are sad and disappointed at Nico’s retirement.
During the post race discussion Mark was asked what he thought about the performance of the rookie teams including Virgin Racing, Lotus and HRT, for which he thought that all these teams were doing very good. He added that there had only been nine races and from their performance it is clearly visible that each of them learns a lesson from every race and that is a very positive sign.
So far it is the Virgin Racing, another Cosworth powered team that had been able to establish them self as the strongest rookie team in the F1 season as they had been able to have a two car finish. In the last Grand prix, in Spain, Timo Glock was among the drivers handed a twenty seconds penalty due to ignoring the blue flag which declined him from his original eighteenth to nineteenth place. The other Virgin driver, Lucas di Grassi ended the race flawless and had been able to show continuous improvement since he joined the team earlier this season.
The other rookie team, Lotus Racing did well at the qualifying but at the final race day was disappointing as both of their drivers got engaged in on-track incidents. Jarno Trulli had a minor incident and ended twenty first whereas Heikki Kovalainen had to retire after the dramatic crash he had with Mark Webber of Red Bull, who also had to resign.
The other Cosworth powered team, HRT, driving Cosworth CA2010, was also able to have both their cars successfully finish at the race with none retiring. It was necessary for the team as they were racing at their home town.
Overall, the first nine races of the season had been very rewarding for Cosworth as all their teams are showing a continuous rising graph and are looking forward to make a reputable place at the Formula one arena.
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