'Rubens could have stayed'

So says Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo

By PH Staff / Friday, 5 August 2005 / Loading comments

Rubens chose to leave

'Rubens could have stayed', Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo has hinted, saying that Barrichello was offered a multi-year contract. We hear that Brazilian driver Barrichello left of his own accord, fed up with the focus of the red team's entire focus on world champion Michael Schumacher.

Barrichello's disgust was contained when the team was doing well. But with the red cars languishing third in the constructor's championship, over 30 points behind the leader Renault -- not a position to which it's become accustomed in recent years, though that would have been a good result in the 1980s -- it's clearly time to move to BAR-Honda and let replacement Sauber's Felipe Massa have a go.