Following in the footsteps of a famous father cannot be easy. In motorsport, ask Damon Hill, Michael Andretti, Nico Rosberg and Mick Schumacher.
Eduardo Barrichello, also known as Dudu, is another trying to forge his path. He is the son of Rubens Barrichello, the Brazilian 11-time Grand Prix winner, who helped Ferrari win five consecutive Formula 1 constructors’ championships from 2000 to 2004, and a two-time Stock Car Pro Series champion.
Eduardo is competing in the GT3 category in the F.I.A. World Endurance Championship. Last month, he raced in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, finishing 13th in class, and on Sunday he will be competing in the Rolex 6 Hours of São Paulo.
It shows how far he has come. Rubens said that for a time, Eduardo showed no interest in following him into motorsport.
“When Dudu was 6, I gave him a go-kart, a natural thing,” he said in an interview in June. “It arrived, and he was happy. He went on it a couple of times, but then he didn’t ask for it any more.
“Then when he was about 9, he asked for the go-kart. I told him it had gone. I had actually kept it, and I still have it. He asked a few more times, but I didn’t pay much attention because I wanted to see how much he really wanted it.”
He bought Eduardo a simulator, but his son continued to ask for a go-kart. “Why did I do that? Because I think the most important thing was for him to like it for himself, because a lot of devotion is required,” he said of a career in motorsport.
“My ex-wife, his mum, kept on telling him how much Dad was devoted, how I needed to go to the gym, to sleep early, that I needed this, I needed that. She didn’t want him to like it as well, just because of me. That was super important.”
Eduardo, 23, said his father “was pretty relaxed,” and he was allowed “to do whatever I wanted to do.” It was not until he entered his first go-kart championship at 11 that it “started to get a bit serious.”
“I remember my first race,” Eduardo said in an interview in June. “I thought it was going to be a normal Saturday race in the Brazilian championship, but there were a lot of cameras, and I had to do a lot of interviews.
“I was like, ‘What’s happening here?’ It was a bit of a shock, and it came with pressure as well, because I was just this young kid. I wasn’t the best at dealing with that. It wasn’t great for me, and I wasn’t prepared for it. I think my parents just wanted to show me that the cameras were going to be there forever.”
Over time, he learned to live with the limelight, which he said had “really shaped me into a good person to perform under pressure.”
“If I have no pressure, it feels like I’m not focused,” he added.
At 17, he progressed to single-seater racing with the Formula 4 United States Championship, followed by two years in the U.S. F2000 National Championship, winning three races in 2020 en route to finishing runner-up.
Over those first few years, he almost gave up. “I started doubting myself,” he said. “It was a tough moment for me because I didn’t think I had what I needed to become successful in the sport.
“And I was always very conscious about the money because I knew that if I didn’t feel I was good enough, I didn’t want my father to spend his money on his kid just playing bumper cars.”
At the end of 2019, Eduardo told his father that he wanted to stop, go to university and “do a normal life.” The start of 2020 was a turning point when they obtained sponsorship.
“It meant I could drive a good car, put it on pole and fight for wins,” he said. “I was vice champion that year, and we said, ‘OK, maybe we’re not the best, but we’re pretty good.’”
A switch to the Formula Regional European Championship for 2021 led to “really dark times,” he said, in a car that was three and a half seconds off the pace. He joined a different team for year two, and there was a late-season improvement, but the sponsorship money ran out.
“Towards the end of the year, I called my dad and I told him I wanted to call it off, that I didn’t think I would get to F1, which was my dream, that I was getting too old, and that I would like to try something new,” he said.
Eduardo joined his father on the same team in the Stock Car Pro Series in Brazil. “The hardest thing was when he was on track in front of me and I saw somebody nudge or touch him — man, I needed therapy, because I wanted to throw that guy on the other side of the grandstand,” Rubens said.
“I couldn’t do it because I cannot be involved in his development like that,” he said. “If he had a problem with a driver, he had to go and solve it himself. I cannot solve everything for him.”
After a respectable rookie season in 2023, Eduardo won races the following year and challenged for the title, finishing third.
The second turning point was at the end of 2023 when Eduardo joined his father in a test of a World Endurance Championship Aston Martin Vantage GT3 at a track in Snetterton, England.
“I’d been talking to Rubens for probably a couple of years to try and get Dudu an opportunity,” Gustavo Beteli, head of performance at Aston Martin Racing, said in an interview in June. “It was one of those really cold, miserable, Snetterton test days. But he did really well.
“The cars are complicated, with a lot of traction control settings, A.B.S., but he adapted to the conditions, which are horrible at a cold, wet Snetterton. He gave good feedback and drove the car to the limit, which is what everyone sees. He handled the pressure and was able to perform, which was good to see.”
Eduardo said he prepared himself for the test “like my life depended on it,” aware it was “a once-in-a-lifetime shot.”
He had already committed to the Stock Car Pro Series for 2024, and there was sponsorship money to raise if he wanted a drive in W.E.C. for this year.
“When they called again, at first, I honestly said, ‘No way. It’s too much money,’” he said. “I didn’t want my parents to change their lives because of mine.
“But we talked, and I realized how I was getting old, and it could be my last shot at my European dream and all that, so I said yes. We all agreed to that. I cannot express how hard we worked to get the sponsorships.”
Rubens said the day he concluded the sponsorship deals, on Dec. 30, was “a super feeling.” Eduardo said his father was “crying so much” when he called over FaceTime to tell him the news.
“That was probably the best day of my life,” Eduardo said. “It shows that hard work pays off, and I think when you work hard enough, sometimes you get luck back. Everybody needs luck, every winner has luck. That was my time for luck.”
He is competing with the Racing Spirit of Léman team this year in the W.E.C. LMGT3 category. His father was at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June to see him compete. “Before the race, we just looked at the crowd, we looked at each other, and we cried for 10 minutes straight, just from gratefulness,” Eduardo said. “It was just such a great moment.”
This weekend will be another emotional moment at home in São Paulo.
“I’ve been dreaming of it every day,” Eduardo said. “I’ll have my girlfriend, family, friends, and in front of my home crowd. Just unbelievable.”
The post As a Driver, Eduardo Barrichello Took a Long Route to the World Endurance Championship appeared first on New York Times.
