Button wins as Brawn GP dominate

Share

Jenson Button's superb season continued as he grabbed his fourth 2009 race win out of five at a tactical Spanish Grand Prix which Brawn GP totally dominated.

Team-mate Rubens Barrichello got past pole-sitter Button with a great start - but a strategy change benefited the Englishman, who pushed him into second.

Red Bull's Mark Webber was third ahead of team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who passed Felipe Massa's Ferrari late on.

McLaren's world champion Lewis Hamilton finished outside the points in ninth.

Massa ran third for much of the race, holding up Vettel's faster Red Bull, but the Brazilian lost the place to Webber at the second pit stops thanks to clever strategy from Red Bull.

Massa then slipped down to sixth behind Vettel and Renault's Fernando Alonso in the closing laps when the Brazilian was forced to go into fuel-saving mode when a problem at his pit stop meant not enough fuel was put into his car. BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld and Williams's Nico Rosberg finished seventh and eighth in the final points positions.

With a win that never looked in doubt after he had built up more than 11 seconds between his car and the rest of the field half-way through the race, Button has further stretched his lead at the top of the drivers' championship and now sits 14 points ahead of Barrichello.

The Brazilian veteran, the oldest man on the grid, could have recorded a first race victory in five years after his superb start.

But the introduction of the safety car after a first-lap collision - for just the fifth time in 18 years at the Circuit de Catalunya - meant Brawn changed Button's race strategy from doing three pit stops to two and he drove superbly to make the switch pay off.

Team boss Ross Brawn said that three stops was theoretically a quicker strategy but that Barrichello had been too slow in his third stint to make it work.

The Brazilian blamed a problem with his tyres in that part of the race for his slow pace."Three stops was the quicker strategy we thought [initially]," said Button.

"I wasn't sure about it [changing to two] and when we put the fuel on board it felt very heavy.

"I didn't think I'd come out ahead of Massa and Vettel [after his first pit stop], but I did and I could just get my head down.

"It's a good feeling and gives me a lot of confidence for the rest of the season."

Red Bull felt they had a car fast enough to beat the Brawns but had to be satisfied with consolidating their second position in the constructors' championship after a race defined by Massa's Ferrari.

Using his energy storage and boost system (Kers), Massa bravely edged past Vettel into third place off the start despite the German's best efforts to block him.

That meant the Red Bull pair, led by Vettel, were forced to follow the slower Brazilian until the first pit stops.

Vettel ended up stuck there throughout the race - he and Massa made both their pit stops on the same lap as each other and the German could not hide his frustration after the race.I think the car was very quick and we definitely could have fought the Brawns," Vettel said.

"It was impossible to pass Felipe [Massa], I tried many times. It was a difficult race but I'm disappointed.

"Sitting behind Massa for 63 laps, it's very frustrating. Especially when you know you can go so much quicker."

Both men ended up being leapfrogged by Webber, who took a gamble on a longer middle stint in a successful attempt to get ahead of the Ferrari.

The strategy change meant Webber made his second pit stop seven laps later than Massa and Vettel, allowing the Australian to make up enough time to emerge from his second pit stop in third place.

Webber had put himself in a position to try the strategy by brilliantly preventing Alonso snatching fifth place after the restart.

The Spaniard blasted past the Red Bull on the straight with the help of his Kers power-boost system, but Webber braked as late as he dared and fought the Renault off as they snaked through the first chicane.

The early crash which helped affect the outcome of the race did not directly involve the front-runners, occurring at the back of the pack after Jarno Trulli's Toyota drifted onto the gravel around Turn Two before coming back onto the track and into the racing line.That caused both Toro Rosso cars to collide with him and Force India's Adrian Sutil was also affected - leaving all four drivers out of the race along with McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen, who retired a few laps later with what appeared to be gearbox failure.

Racing with typical aggression, Hamilton came from 14th on the grid to finish ninth but could not put in the required lap times needed to truly compete in his updated McLaren.

"What can I say, what can I do, I drove my heart out as I always do and that car is just not good - I just had no grip," he said.

"For sure at the moment, I don't have a car to win the championship.

"Everyone is wondering what's going on, but the car is that bad. I am driving the socks off it but... There's just no hope."

The sixth race of the season takes place on the street circuit of Monaco in two weeks' time on 24 May.

Button claims pole in Spain

Share

World championship leader Jenson Button captured a crucial pole position for Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix.

The last eight winners at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya, and 13 of the last 14 overall, have all started on pole, underlining how notoriously difficult it is to overtake on this track.

It was Button's sixth pole of his career, and third this season, snatched in the dying moments ahead of Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, with Brawn GP team-mate Rubens Barrichello third.

Felipe Massa epitomised Ferrari's improvement this weekend as he will start from a season-high fourth, with Mark Webber in his Red Bull fifth.

The bottom five, though, was equally as remarkable as it proved to be a bad day for Finland with Kimi Raikkonen and Heikki Kovalainen failing to make it into Q2.

Reigning champion Lewis Hamilton faired little better as he will start from 14th, the worst position of his F1 career in the dry.

With a degree of understatement, Hamilton said: "I guess it's a bit of a disappointing qualifying for us.'

"We did the best we could, but the laps weren't fantastic. We had hoped to be higher up.

"But it's not last, and there's lots that can happen. It's a long tough race, so I hope we can get a point, that would be great."

With regard to Raikkonen, it was yet another dreadful error of judgment from Ferrari because as with Massa in Malaysia the team felt he was safe with his time after running for just five laps.

But as he sat in the garage his name slowly slid down the timing screen until coming to rest at 16th, his worst performance since Australia last year.

Even more galling for 2007 champion Raikkonen is that Massa topped the timesheets at the end of the opening 20-minute session.

At least Ferrari had the good grace to hold their hands up as they conceded they "miscalculated," but the mistakes continue to mount up and cost them dear.

Raikkonen said: "It's really disappointing because the car was looking in good shape this weekend.

"I was not too keen to go out again either really because I thought the time we had done would be enough."

Behind Sebastien Bourdais in his Toro Rosso, Kovalainen will start a woeful 18th, his lowest grid slot since joining McLaren prior to last season.

Afterwards, Kovalainen revealed he "didn't have the grip and...no confidence to push it (the car) whatsoever".

Ahead of this race the team had warned their car would not suit the circuit, but it is almost certain they did not expect to be in such miserable positions.

Kovalainen only narrowly finished ahead of the Force India duo, with neither Adrian Sutil nor Giancarlo Fisichella making it into Q2 for the 23rd consecutive race as they will start 19th and 20th.

The top 10 was rounded out by the Toyotas of Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli in sixth and seventh, Fernando Alonso eighth for Renault, with Nico Rosberg ninth in his Williams and Robert Kubica 10th for BMW Sauber.

In the mid-field, Williams' Kazuki Nakajima starts 11th, followed by the Renault of Nelson Piquet who came within 0.095secs of out-qualifying Alonso.

Sandwiching Hamilton are Nick Heidfeld in his BMW Sauber and the Toro Rosso of Sebastien Buemi.

"It could have gone very wrong," said a relieved Button after a pulsating qualifying performance.

"But it was by far the best lap I've had this weekend, so I'm very happy. It was a bit of a surprise.

"When I heard the shouts I had qualified on pole, it felt very good.

"The package is a good step forward. We have to work with it a bit more, and get the most out of it - I hope we can anyway.

"But I'm excited. I didn't expect to be sat in this position at the moment."

Vettel, who has qualified in the top three in each of the five races this season, said: "We have a very strong car.

"This weekend it has worked pretty well, but not good enough to beat Jenson.

"I would have loved to have had the pole, but second position is great."

Like Button, Barrichello is also happy with the car, but knows he has to do more if he is to beat the Briton.

"A great effort from Jenson," said Barrichello.

"He is doing a really good job and deserves to be there. I just have to try harder and harder to get him."