The Italian Grand Prix weekend at Monza is always steeped in history, but this year Ferrari turned that history into a live demonstration, bringing back a car most fans only know from archive footage and pairing it with a story that stretched across two generations of one family.
According to Formula1News.co.uk, the Ferrari F2002 returned to the Monza track with Rubens Barrichello behind the wheel on Saturday, followed by Sebastian Vettel driving the same car ahead of Sunday's race, as part of a wider tribute to Michael Schumacher.
The helmet Barrichello wore during the run wasn't a standard tribute design. It was created by his son, Fernando, folding a personal element into what was otherwise a celebration of Ferrari's most successful period. Fernando had marked the same weekend in his own way, racing in Formula 3 at Monza in a helmet that mixed his usual green, yellow and blue with the red, white and blue long associated with his father's career, a quiet nod to the racing legacy that shaped him.
That legacy runs deep for a reason. Barrichello spent six seasons, from 2000 to 2005, racing alongside Schumacher at Ferrari, and it was in an F2002 that he won the 2002 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, finishing ahead of Schumacher himself in a Ferrari one-two. It's one of three Monza victories on Barrichello's record, the others coming in 2004 with Ferrari and 2009 with Brawn GP, giving him wins at the circuit across two separate teams and eras.
Ferrari built the weekend's programme around a pair of anniversaries: 30 years since Schumacher joined the team in 1996, and 20 years since his last win in Ferrari colours, which came at the 2006 Chinese Grand Prix. Across the years in between, he won five straight drivers' titles and took five victories at Monza specifically, numbers that still anchor much of the team's identity today.
Fernando Barrichello's connection to the sport isn't limited to family history, either. Since 2025, he has served as a brand ambassador for CryptoProcessing, a partnership tied to the company's involvement in motorsport and its stated focus on supporting younger drivers who carry recognisable names into their own careers.
By the end of the weekend, the F2002's return had done more than mark a champion's anniversary. It had brought a former teammate back into a car he'd once raced to victory, and given a new generation of the same family a moment to publicly carry that history forward.
