Riccardo Patrese, here en route to victory at Monaco in 1982, holds the current GP start record. (LAT photo) » More Photos

While it seemed as though Rubens was set to break into the top echelon of F1, he only scored 1 more podium with Jordan, at the 1995 Canadian GP famously won by Jean Alesi. For 1997 he joined the fledgling Stewart team, beginning what would be a long association with Bridgestone tires – going into the Istanbul 2008 weekend Rubens has started 172 races on the Japanese rubber, more than any other driver (Michael Schumacher is next on 132). Since 1997, Rubens has only raced one season without them (2006, when Honda ran Michelins).

Back in that first year with Stewart, Barrichello collected a surprise second place finish in the wet Monaco Grand Prix behind Schumacher. It would be the first of 25 times they would finish 1-2, but the only time it would happen when they were not teammates.

Even back then, Barrichello was the nearly man. Having already taken their first podium, Rubens added the team’s first pole position at a wet Magny-Cours in 1999 and was a threat for victory throughout the year, but it would be Johnny Herbert who would take the team’s only win, in the attrition-hit European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.

Joining Ferrari in 2000 was always likely to give Rubens his best chance of success, and he finally achieved his first win at Hockenheim, becoming the first man ever to start more than 100 Grands Prix before taking a victory (124, to be precise). That win came from 18th on the grid, the lowest position for a race winner in the past 25 years.

Once again, it came in changeable conditions, and the race was further interrupted by a man running onto the track. Suitably enough, the only other time that has happened in the modern era was at Silverstone in 2003 – resulting in another Barrichello victory!

In 2001, Barrichello became the first man in history to score 10 podium finishes in a season without ever winning a race, and that combined with the rise of the Schumacher/Ferrari steamroller saw the team clinch the constructors’ championship with six races still remaining, and this would be a theme throughout his Ferrari career, a team for which he started 102 races (104 according to Rubens) between 2000 and 2005.

The following season would be his most successful in F1, finishing as runner-up to Schumacher in the championship and taking four victories. While some would readily argue that his Indianapolis win was a complete fluke (Rubens crossing the line 0.011s ahead of Michael when the German botched a formation finish), Rubens can also point to the notorious Austrian Grand Prix, when he led 69 of the 71 laps only to have to yield to Michael within 100 yards of the finish line.

Given his association with Bridgestone, there is a little irony in his most recent podium finish being second place in the 2005 United States Grand Prix, a race marred by the withdrawal of the Michelin teams. Leaving Ferrari for Honda in 2006 was always likely to see his numbers go down slightly, but even the likeable Rubens must have been slightly envious when Jenson Button gave the team their first win in their modern incarnation at the Hungaroring, having watched Johnny Herbert do a similar thing seven years previously.

That victory seems a long time ago now, and ahead of his momentous Turkish Grand Prix, there is one record Rubens would certainly like to be rid of – he is pointless in his last 21 races, the longest barren spell in his career.