Irvine 1996-1999 vs. Barrichello 2000-2004

Irvine had Schumacher at his absolute best. It fairly common to see Schumacher over a second clear of him in qualifying alone. Not a chance that's simply because Ferrari wanted Schumacher to be a clear #1.

Barrichello was an incredibly fast driver in the 90s and at Ferrari proved equally fast as before. He had tremendous speed in qualifying. Race pace? It was rare for him to be faster than Schumacher. Occasionally this meant giving a place to the #1 (who earned it by right, imo. Regardless of what contract said, the finishing order would remain all the same!).

I think Irvine liked it at Ferrari, no? He was free to do as he liked, something he definitely wouldn't be allowed under Ron's dictatorship. Definitely a playboy driver, and what better entrance to make than say ''I'm an F1 driver, for Ferrari''. I think in those years, any club he walked into, he was made to feel like a God.

The 1999 car was pretty damn solid, and no doubt would Schumacher have won it (Irvine himself almost did, of course, save for the balls up in the pit!). I think Barrichello was the faster driver of the 2.

 

You mistake me. He wasn't bad, Schumacher was just that good.

Schumacher had a knack at that time for completely obliterating his teammates at this time:

Jordan: First ever taste of F1, matched their best ever qualifying. De Cesaris, fast and incredibly well experienced, was 7 tenths down

Benetton: only a few races for him against 3x WDC but matched and beat him. 1 point less
1992 had highly experienced Brundle as his teammate (Senna's strongest opposition in F3), Solidly beat him.

Patrese was his next 'mate...most experienced driver of the lot at the time IIRC. Obliterated him

94: combination of teammates (Lehto, Verstappen and Herbert...all extremely fast drivers). None of them could come close to matching Schumacher.

95: Herbert his teammate...but once again obliterated by MSC (9 wins, a second place and a third, compared to Herberts 2 inherited wins and 2 podiums)

And so on...

I don't think mattered who took the seat next to Schumacher. They would just be completely destroyed when he was in his absolute prime. They where all beaten in the same way as Irvine, easily by 5-8 tenths during quali, sometimes well over a second to 2 seconds, and then the race was still to come.

 

Eddie left Ferrari because he wanted to, after fighting for the title he didn't want to be a nº2 no more, and jaguar payed a lot. He was well apreciated at Ferrari, i believe more then Rubens....In terms of speed they were closely matched as proven in their Jordan year together. I poersonaly prefered Eddie, he had more of a killer instinct but perhaps Rubens was an overall better driver....i don't really know, they were closely matched, diference was, Eddie knew very well he was hired as second driver, and he fully recognized Michael was faster, while Rubens had a very hard time accepting that.

 

I wouldn't put Herbert in the same "league" as the others....Johny was clearly boicoted by the benetton team when he showed similar pace to Michael....what was done to him was a travesty.

 

Too early for me to remember that.

FWIW I value him well above JJ, who didn't seem to gel too well in F1. Verstappen was very quick but it all happened too soon for him in F1. Herbert was above them, even with his injuries.

 

JJ was acutaly a pretty decent driver...he did very well in a bms dallara, scuderia Italia...But Johny was the real deal, i still remenber his first f.1 race in Brazil, he couldn't walk..his mechanics carried him to the car...i syll don't understand how he was able to pass the test and leave the car on his own in the few seconds he was alowed to do so!!
He was 5º in his first race, beating naninni who was very, very good...unfortunatly his injuries prevented him from racing after a couple of events, he had to return later...