Button wins for Brawn in Melbourne!
After the excitement and drama of qualifying, the 58-lap Australian Grand Prix lived up to all expectations as Jenson Button recorded his second career victory and the first for the brand new Brawn Mercedes team.
Out of the ashes of the Honda team, Brawn GP stunned its rivals as soon as they took to the tests tracks in Spain for pre-season testing. The form continued into practice and the team aced the front row in qualifying in Melbourne.
Race day saw Button make a perfect start to lead the first lap by five seconds as Rubens Barrichello slipped down the field as his anti-stall device kicked in. As the drama played out in the closing stages, Rubens Barrichello inherited second position to make it a famous Brawn GP one-two result.
While Button was rarely troubled at the front of the field, the battle for second position looked set to go down to the wire a Sebastian Vettel defended his position from the charging Robert Kubica. A small error on his worn option tyres from the Red Bull Renault driver at the first turn saw the German racer lose momentum allowing Kubica’s BMW Sauber alongside heading into turn three.
Vettel, obviously keen to retain the position was not going to give in without a fight but then went in too deep eliminating himself and Kubica within sight of the chequered flag.
This allowed the recovering Barrichello through into second position for a dream Brawn Mercedes result and cost Red Bull Renault at least six valuable championship points.
Following the disappointment post-qualifying yesterday, Jarno Trulli put in a great drive from the pit lane to finish third in his Toyota, while team-mate Glock took the chequered flag in fifth position after a long battle with double world champion Fernando Alonso. While the TF109 has proven rapid all weekend there was sting in the tail for the team for the second straight day...
Following the chequered flag and the podium celebrations, Trulli was found guilt of passing Lewis Hamilton whilst behind the safety car. The Italian veteran was handed a 12 second penalty dropping him from third position to 12th.
Hamilton started the 58-lap race from 18th position following his gearbox issues in qualifying and made great progress on the option tyre in the opening laps. As Ferrari, Vettel and Kubica slipped up the 2008 race winner and defending champion found himself in a sensational fourth position at the flag and then third in the record books.
McLaren Mercedes may not have a great package as yet with the MP4-24, but Hamilton today proved himself yet again with an impressive drive on a day few thought a top ten result let alone points could be possible.
The tradional problems at the very first turn
Fernando Alonso finished in sixth position, later to become fifth, after a quiet day by his very high standards. Indeed it was Nelson Piquet who led the way for the Renault team for much of the race before locking his brakes and spinning into retirement following the first safety car period. It was a shame for the under pressure Brazilian racer who raced well until that point.
Nico Rosberg could well have finished in second position in his Williams Toyota but a slow pitstop and then a problem with the FW31 in the closing stages saw him drop down to seventh position at the chequered flag. Team-mate Kazuki Nakajima ran well in the points in the early stages before clipping the kerbs exiting turn four and spinning his Williams into the left hand side retaining wall and out of the race.
Nakajima‘s accident played nicely into the hands of the Ferrari team as the safety car was deployed his accident. Staring fifth and sixth, Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen opted to complete the first stint on the super-soft option tyre - a tyre rapid for a few laps and then quickly falling off the pace.
Following early pitstops, the safety car closed up the field and it looked for a time that both Massa and Raikkonen were back in contention for a podium position. However it was not to be for the famous Italian team as Massa slowed with a mechanical problem late in the race and was forced to retire while Raikkonen dropped his F60 and made contact with the retaining wall. Following his third stop Raikkonen ran at the back until the final safety car and then parked the car.
While it was a tale of woes for Ferrari, rookie Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Buemi had a fantastic debut for the Ferrari-powered team. Buemi battled hard with Alonso for much of the race and didn’t put a wheel wrong as he defended his position. It is fitting that the Swiss racer earned points with his fine seventh place finish.
Sebastien Bourdais finished eighth in the second Toro Rosso and claimed the final championship point ahead of Adrian Sutil in the leading Force India. Nick Heidfeld was forced to pit at the end of the first lap with a cut tyre courtesy of Mark Webber and Rubens Barrichello making contact at the very first turn.
The slow starting Barrichello slipped down the order on the run to the first turn only to find Webber’s Red Bull alongside. In something of a 50-50 incident, the Australian turned in on Barrichello and contact was made.
Heidfeld, running on the outside was caught in the incident and could never recover the lost ground as he finished in tenth position. Heikki Kovalainen was also caught up in the incident and was forced to retire his McLaren at the end of the first lap with front left wheel and suspension damage. Webber soldiered on in his RB5 to finish a lapped 13th behind the unfortunate Trulli and Giancarlo Fisichella in the second VJM02.
There’s a new order in Formula One and now only a short pause in the action as the team’s head to Sepang for the Malaysian Grand Prix next weekend.
Earl ALEXANDER
© CAPSIS International
1. J.Button
2. R.Barrichello
3. L.Hamilton