Rubens Barrichello revealed his first instance of being told to hold station behind Michael Schumacher at Ferrari came in his very first race at the team.

Barrichello joined the Scuderia in 2000, with Schumacher firmly the number one driver and about to go on what would become a run of five consecutive World Championships.

Barrichello recalls being told to ‘drop the revs’ in first race behind Michael Schumacher

Barrichello spent all of Schumacher’s title-winning seasons at Ferrari as his team-mate, before leaving for Honda in 2006.

He explained that, while there was added pressure of being a Ferrari driver, that paled in comparison to not knowing whether or not he had the funding to go racing as a junior driver.

But when he did make it to a prime seat in Formula 1, he admitted with the benefit of hindsight that the seven-time World Champion was likely the better driver, but given the in-team situation at Ferrari at the time, “we will never know” exactly by how much.

Reflecting on his move to the Scuderia from his seat at Stewart at the time, the Brazilian admitted there was more at stake from his perspective, but that was balanced out by driving one of the best cars on the grid.

He acknowledged, though, that his first instance of being told to hold station behind Schumacher came on his Ferrari debut in Melbourne in 2000, bringing home the fastest lap in a Scuderia 1-2.

“The time outside the car was the toughest time, because it’s a lot more work,” Barrichello said of his step up to Ferrari on the Beyond the Grid podcast.

“It’s a lot more media, a lot more travelling.

“There are papers that come with, ‘you can say this, you cannot say that.’ You know, people are just watching.

“But then every time I sat on the car, I had the pleasure and the gratitude of driving a really good car, and that paid off.

“So every time you saw me on the car, take Australia, the very first race. I was second, but I was getting close to Michael that race, so that was the first time I heard something on the radio that I had to drop the revs, or something like this.

“But you see, I was prepared for that, just because pressure for me was really when I did not know when I met my father after work, if he would come back to me and say, ‘Son, we have no money to go for this go-kart race’ – ‘pressure’ was that, so those difficult times that I had made me prepare for the time that I would then have people watching.”

He admitted that there were difficult conversations behind the scenes at Ferrari at times, but he remains grateful for the opportunities he had in his career.

“Would I have done anything different in my whole career? We would have made some changes along the way, but I have gratitude for everything that happened, even times like at Ferrari that were tough,” he said.

“I would spend an hour with Ross [Brawn] and Jean Todt saying: ‘Look, this shouldn’t be done like this, and this, and this, and this.’

“And now sometimes I see people just talking to the press. I feel that I was okay with the press, but I talked really hard with them, because, I mean, guys, you need to let me be myself.

“So was Schumacher better than me? I think so. But 51-49? 70-30? I don’t know. We will never know, because it was something that it was not supposed to let you free.”