Rubens Barrichello is not a name garnering much attention entering the 2011 Formula One season. Barrichello's name fell to the back burner as he finished 10th in the standings last year with his new team, Williams, following a 2009 year rife with success. His pairing then with surprise squad Brawn GP resulted in a third-place finish in the world championship and two victories, but as is the story of his career, he often played second fiddle to teammate Jenson Button.

But from a statistics standpoint, he's a bit of an F1 wonder. After becoming the first driver in series history to reach 300 grand prix starts last season, Barrichello will set another record in longevity this year. The 2011 season will be his 19th, breaking a tie with Graham Hill for the most Formula One seasons.

Hill's career spanned from 1958 through 1975 and included two world championships in 1962 and 1968. Barrichello has not been as fortunate, finishing a distant runner-up twice in the standings to teammate Michael Schumacher at Ferrari but never claiming the title. The two drivers did share some similarities, however.

In their expansive careers, both drove for six different teams, and neither immediately found success when he first broke into the sport. Hill did not muster a victory until his fifth season, but it propelled him to a world championship. That year saw another British driver, Jim Clark, also earn his first F1 victory, and the title race came down to the final event of the season.

Barrichello did not see his first F1 win until 2000, his eighth season in the sport and first with Ferrari. The two competed in vastly different eras (Barrichello saw Hill's son, Damon, win an F1 title during his career), and although Hill certainly had a more impressive tenure, Barrichello has found considerable success throughout his time in F1.

Meanwhile, a man whom Barrichello has competed against for the better part of five seasons, Robert Kubica, will be on the sideline for the foreseeable future after his severe rally accident.

It's a shame, as Kubica is in the prime of his career. He scored podium finishes at Monaco, Spa and Australia last season and certainly was capable of adding a second win to his résumé this year with Renault, as he has come very close to victory several times. After all, his 12 career podiums are the fourth-most among the 31 drivers who have a single F1 victory to their name, so he is quite familiar with finishing near the front. He trails Jean Alesi by a wide margin, however. Alesi, a familiar face during the 1990s, had just one F1 win but a remarkable 32 podium finishes.

One story to watch as the season approaches is McLaren's reliability issues. Both Lewis Hamilton and Button have voiced their concerns, as the pair have found themselves in the garage far too often during preseason testing. Button is traditionally a fast starter, but without a solid car, it might be for naught.

The 2009 champion expressed his doubts recently in an interview with media: "It's tricky because we haven't had enough testing in the car to do proper setup work, which is disappointing. When you're limited on parts and you have reliability issues, you don't get the testing done. You need to really develop the car. It's been bitty in testing. We have had some good runs, but the problem is we have not done enough to see our pace compared with others. We've improved but not enough. The next test [at Barcelona] is really important. If we went racing now, we wouldn't be quite ready."

In the past few seasons, McLaren has found early-season success for the most part. That was certainly true last year, when the squad won four of the initial eight events. The 2009 season was an exception for all, as Brawn GP dominated, but the previous year, the team from Woking (United Kingdom) claimed five of the first 11 races. The same rang true for 2007 (four wins in the first seven dates on the calendar).

The MP4-26 is one of the more radical designs on the grid, with a unique, L-shaped sidepod design, and if the team is slow off the block this year, it may prove extremely difficult to catch up to the likes of Ferrari and Red Bull.