Four-time F1 world champion and former Ferrari driver, Alain Prost, has heavily criticised the Scuderia for favouring Michael Schumacher over team-mate Rubens Barrichello.
Four-time F1 world champion and former Ferrari driver, Alain Prost, has heavily criticised the Scuderia for favouring Michael Schumacher over team-mate Rubens Barrichello.
Prost, who drove for Ferrari in 1990 and 1991, said that Ferrari would not have been able to win this year’s championship if both its drivers had been provided with equal opportunities. And while he acknowledges that Schumacher is an “exceptional” driver, he felt that circumstances favoured the German too much.
“What annoys me most is the way certain drivers sign No 1 contracts leaving the No 2 with nothing to do but lick their boots. There is no natural, internal rivalry. Michael is an exceptional driver, but the circumstances have worked very much in his favour,” Prost told .
“He has never been up against really sharp opposition either in his own team or outside. Ferrari would never have won if they had been grooming two drivers for success.”
Prost said that an example of Ferrari’s policy occurred at the start of the United States Grand Prix this year. The Frenchman reckoned that Barrichello made a deliberately slow start from second to delay the cars on the right hand side of the grid. Meanwhile Schumacher, who had qualified down in seventh on the left of the circuit, was able to make up four places.
“The start at Indianapolis this season made me pretty sick,” said Prost, whose F1 team went under at the end of 2001.