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Jenson Button took his 4th win in five races to stretch out his lead at the top of the driver's world championship. Teammate Rubens Barrichello, who led at the start, and was ahead for the better part of the race, finished second. Mark Webber in the Red Bull made a late charge to finish on the podium, one spot ahead of his teammate Sebastian Vettel.

As the race started, Rubens Barrichello went around the outside of pole sitter Jenson Button to lead into turn 1. Further down, it appeared that Nico Rosberg w ent off and in trying to avoid him, Jarno Trulli went off the track at turn two. As the Toyota speared back onto the track, it hit the Force India of Adrian Sutil. Both the Torro Rossos of Sebastian Beumi and Sebastian Bourdais seem to have gotten entangled in the incident and were out of the race as well.

Out came the safety car for 4 laps as the marshals frantically cleared off the carbon fiber debris that had littered the track.

At the restart, the order stayed the same. Hamilton at this stage was down in 14th place... with Fisichella's Force India behind him after a stop in the pits. Hamilton was soon up to 12th - after overtaking Piquet's Renault and then with the retirement of teammate Kovalinen, which left only 15 cars in the field after just 7 laps of running.

Rubens at the front in the meantime was trying to stretch out his advantage. Button was the first of the front runners to stop on lap 18. He took on 25 laps of fuel as Alonso joined him in the pits. While all this was going on, Raikkonen slowed down at turn 3 and slowly cruised around for a bit before stopping; his car out with no drive.

Rubens came in the next lap; Webber was in at the same time. And Rubens came out miles ahead of Button, clearly the Brawn team put in less fuel for him than his teammate, and apparently racing him on a different perhaps 3 stop strategy.

Massa and Vettel both came in on the next lap, line astern. They rejoined in the same order, in 3rd and 4th place, and Vettel who looked to be the pre-race favorite could possibly see the race slipping away from him, as he was stuck behind the slower Ferrari, and seemed to have no way of overtaking the KERs equipped Ferrari. The Brawns, in the meantime, were still in the lead and in control after the 1st round of troops.

Rubens was now posting one fastest lap after another as he needed to eke out a 20 second advantage. By lap 30, he was 13.5 seconds ahead when he came in for his second stop. He came out in 4th about 8 seconds in Button's arrears.

Massa and Vettel once again pitted at the same time again on lap 43 making sure that Vettel stayed behind the Ferrari. The Ferrari strategy, at this stage seemed to be working like a charm.

Button now came in for his second and final stop on lap 48, dropping down to second. Rubens was now back in the lead and needed to stretch out an advantage, especially with Button on the harder tyre and with more fuel on board. Unfortunately Rubens was in the pits only two laps later, handing the lead back to Button, and this time decisively. With 16 laps to go, Button neatly cruised to the finish, some 13s ahead of his teammate at the end.

Webber in the meantime, quietly put in a series of great laps and leap-frogged the slower Massa and teammate Vettel to grab the last position on the podium. In the final laps, Vettel put massive pressure on Massa, with Ferrari telling the Brazilian that he was being hungry on fuel and needed to conserve some to get to the end of the race.

On lap 63, with 3 laps to go, Vettel finally got ahead of the Ferrari on the main straight. It appeared that the Ferrari let Vettel by in order to conserve fuel to try and get the car home without needing to make an additional pitstop. Alonso then went ahead and also overtook Massa on the last lap of the race to finish 5th.

Even as Button took the chequered flag there was drama down the field as it was unclear where Massa would finish. Massa finally finished 6th, just two seconds ahead of Heidfeld who would've taken him had there been another corner in the race.

Nick Heidfeld and Nico Rosberg were the last of the points finishers in 7th and 8th.

Button, just before the end, had lapped Hamilton, demonstrating decisively just how far McLaren have fallen behind the pack at a race where most of the teams brought updates to. Hamilton finished just outside the points in 9th place.

Fisichella made 4 stops and finished last in the Force India; the team having a day they would rather forget.

Another 1-2 for Brawn, and Red Bull increasingly look like their nearest competitors. Ferrari have made progress but for a strange strategy decision could've come home with handy points.

Top 10

1. Button, Brawn GP-Mercedes, 1h37:19.202
2. Barrichello, Brawn GP-Mercedes   + 13.056
3. Webber, Red Bull-Renault            + 13.924
4. Vettel, Red Bull-Renault               + 18.941
5. Alonso, Renault                            + 43.166
6. Massa, Ferrari                               + 50.827
7. Heidfeld, BMW Sauber                 + 52.312
8. Rosberg, Williams-Toyota             + 1:05.211
9. Hamilton, McLaren-Mercedes       + 1 lap
10. Glock, Toyota                             + 1 lap

 

File Photograph Copyright: Meor Arifuddin Meor Adam

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