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Jenson Button won a race that most did not expect him to win after yesterday's qualifying. It was his 3rd win out of 4 races, and firmly cemented him as the leading contender for this year's driver's crown. Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull, the pre-race favorite and winner of the Chinese Grand Prix, finished 2nd, 7 seconds behind Button's Brawn-Mercedes. Jarno Trulli in the Toyota, who started from pole, rounded off the podium positions.

Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton's 4th place, earned on merit, demonstrated t he massive progress that has been by McLaren-Mercedes since the start of the season. Rubens Barrichello fell down the order at the start, but an aggressive 3 stop strategy made sure that he finished 5th - a position he is sure not be happy with, given where his teammate finished.

Raikkonen finished 6th, making sure that Ferrari did not in fact endure its worst start to a Formula 1 season. The Italian squad can take some satisfaction from this and from the fact that they brought both cars home, even if Massa finished a lap down in 14th place. Glock, who led the race in the initial laps, finished 7th, while Fernando Alonso in the Renault rounded off the points scoring positions.

Glock got ahead of his team mate into the first corner, and Trulli was then briefly passed by Hamilton, before he won the position back later in the lap. Hamilton was later drafted and then out-braked into the first corner by Button on lap 2. This was perhaps the decisive moment of the race. It allowed Button to stay in touch with the two Toyotas who he leapt ahead of at the first round of pit stops. Vettel, in the meantime was stuck behind Hamilton. After the first stops, Vettel was again stuck behind a slower car, this time Trulli's Toyota, who was on the harder tire, effectively handing the race to Button. At this stage, neither Vettel nor Hamilton, who were quicker than the Italian, could get ahead of him bringing into question the new aerodynamic rules that were supposed to help with overtaking.

After a few early dices, the race pretty much settled into a rhythm, with pit stops deciding the running order and any changes in position. Towards the latter stages of the race, Trulli pressured Vettel to the flag, and Glock applied similar pressure on the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen. Neither succeeded in getting ahead and Glock was always going to have a hard time overtaking the KERS-assisted Ferrari.

The only retirement of the race was the Williams of Kazuki Nakajima, demonstrating the remarkable reliability of the current crop of F1 cars in a race heald in searing hot conditions. The BMWs meanwhile, had a torrid day. The two were lapped by the leading cars and finished at the very bottom of the timesheet.

The two Force India cars had a slightly better day, and the improvements they brought to this race meant that they appear to have leap-frogged the BMWs in pace. Though only finishing 16th and 17th, Giancarlo Fisichella was up to 12th on lap 6, and had a race-long scrap with Mark Webber and the Ferrari of Felipe Massa, whose race was ruined by an early clash with his team mate that required a pit-stop on lap2. For a while Fisico ran as high as 10th but then on lap 43, while running in 14th place he made a mistake that dropped him down the order.

Button was delighted with his performance, more so because the Brawn-Mercedes did not look the quickest car before the race. Speaking at the post race press conference he said, "This was a tough race for us. This week we did not have the pace we needed."

Button's win means that he's stretched his lead in the championship to 12 points. He now has 31 points while team mate Barrichello's 5th place means that he's still in 2nd position with 19 points. Vettel though is snapping at the Brazilian's heels with 18 points.

The next race will be held at Barcelona in two weeks time. It's a race where many teams will bring updates to their cars after the 4 fly-away races. Expect things to shake up in Barcelona. Will Ferrari be able to challenge at the front again? Will McLaren maintain its progress up the grid, and will Button and Brawn stretch out their advantage even more, having ended the early part of the season well on top? Join us to find out!

 

Point Scorers

1. Button, Brawn GP-Mercedes, 1h31:48.182
2. Vettel, Red Bull-Renault, + 7.187
3. Trulli, Toyota, + 9.170
4. Hamilton, McLaren-Mercedes, + 22.096
5. Barrichello, Brawn GP-Mercedes, + 37.779
6. Raikkonen, Ferrari, + 42.057
7. Glock, Toyota, + 42.880
8. Alonso, Renault, + 52.775

 Photograph Copyright: Coldtrackdays.com

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