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Rubens Barrichello wins the race of the season

Sun 20-07 2003

Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello has won one of the races of the season in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

The polesitter had lost the lead at the off and things got worse for the Brazilian after a protester ran onto the track during the race .

That shook the race up completely as the safety car was brought out and left Rubens well down the field.

He needed to use every ounce of his talent and racecraft to get him back to the front. It was an incredible performance in an incredible race.

Rarely have we seen so much overtaking and much of it was simply breathtaking. That should ensure that the race won't be overshadowed by the actions of one particular idiot on lap 12.

The 'lunactic' ran up the middle of Hanger Straight as cars swerved to miss him.

He was bizarrely dressed in green, waving flags and carrying placards before eventually being brought to ground by a marshall. He could easily have been killed.

It brought back memories of Hockenheim three years ago and there are sure to be questions asked as to how he gained access to the tarmac.

The race was turned upside down as the cars all pitted. That brought chaos as the garages tried to the cars back out at the same time.

Unbelievably it left Michael Schumacher in position 13 sandwiched between the two BARs.

Jacques Villeneuve was in no move for yielding and the world champion was left in a midpack dogfight.

Meanwhile 30 seconds ahead the car in front really was a Toyota as Cristiano da Matta led the British Grand Prix for more than ten laps.

Finally the rookie was forced to pit and Raikonnen took up the charge from Rubens and JPM.

Yet the race wasn't about to settle down as Rubens refused to let Kimi get comfortable and began bearing down on the Finn.

The two cars pitted and despite the endeavours of the Ferrari mechanics and some super fast laps from Rubens, he remained behind Kimi.

That was lap 39 in what appeared to be a pivotal moment.

How wrong we were, Rubens immediately poured all over the McLaren and took him at 150mph going into Bridge.

It was tremendous stuff and the misery wasn't over for Kimi as he made a mistake to let Montoya in.

It was now a straight race for the line and who else should be making up ground, but Michael Schumacher, methodically crawling his way back to fourth.

In a race of countless overtaking manoeuvres DC gave the home crowd plenty to cheer about in the final laps as he honed in on P5.

Earlier, Silverstone was basked in warm sunshine as the five red lights went out.

Jarno Trulli was first to Copse as Kimi went past Rubens while Michael Schumacher had to hold off Fernando Alonso who powered from eighth to sixth place on the grid.

Another mover was Coulthard who got past both Jaguars on the first lap.

Five laps later and the safety car made an early appearance after the Scot's head rest fell off on lap six leaving debris on the track. At that point it seemed that DC's luck was firmly out.

Then came the protester which triggered a full hour of first-class racing.

Kimi will know that he ought to have finished higher but the Ferrari was definitely the car of the day.

The team's recent work has obviousy paid off.

Before we herald Rubens it was another superb performance by Michael who yields just a single point to his nearest challenger in the championship. (He now leads Raikkonen by seven points).

But the day belonged to Rubens Barrichello - who clearly loves the Northamptonshire airfield.

Last year he went from 21st to 2nd place here. This year he went one better.

It led James Allen to remark that it was the moment that Rubens showed he really is world class.

Categorieën: Jacques Villeneuve

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