Barrichello beats Massa in Granja Viana
A team captained by Rubens Barrichello won Sunday’s Granja Viano endurance karting event, after Felipe Massa, the man who replaces him at Ferrari, had taken pole position. It was the ninth running of the annual 500-mile race, which takes place in Sao Paolo and regularly attracts Brazil’s biggest motorsport names.
Saturday's qualifying session saw Massa set a record time of 57.701s to put his team, featuring Ruben Carrapatoso and Rafael Daniel, at the front of the grid. Barrichello’s team, with the same winning line-up from last year - IRL champions Dan Wheldon and Tony Kanaan plus Alexandre Barros and Felipe Giaffone - was only 17th.
However, the race, which started at around midnight, was disrupted by heavy rain. The downpours almost brought proceedings to a halt at one point and meant the leaders hit the 12-hour time limit before reaching the 500-mile mark. The tricky conditions allowed Barrichello and co to climb through the field for victory, despite being a full lap down on the leaders at one point.
Barrichello is no stranger to winning the end-of-season event, his link-up with Kanaan having brought victory on a record six occasions. Massa, meanwhile, won the inaugural Granja Viana in 1997 when he was a local rising star in Formula Chevrolet and was also on Barrichello’s winning team in 2002.
