It’s a Brawn One-Two at Monza

After a hard-fought race Lewis Hamilton crashed out on the final lap.  Under a hot Milanese sun they drove hard down the straights and into the curves, with their tyres melting fast.  Lewis made an unscheduled stop for new tyres early in the race, and luckily the team was ready this time.  However by the time he drove out of the pits the Brawns of Button and Barrichello were just ahead of him.

And so it stayed with Barrachello leading the pack with his friend and rival.  Jenson Button became a permanent fixture in his rear view mirror for the rest of the race, sometimes close up, sometimes far away.

Further back Mark Webber crashed out early, putting a hex on Red Bull’s chances of winning the championship.  But it was on the final lap that Lewis Hamilton, driving hard, felt the car go from under him as he navigated a pair of curves.  It dived, nose first into a barrier wall.  Luckily he was unhurt and remarkably unfazed.  The only thing about him damaged was his chances of defending his title.

The final results are as follows:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pts
1	23	Rubens Barrichello	Brawn-Mercedes	53	1:16:21.706	5	10
2	22	Jenson Button	Brawn-Mercedes	53	+2.8 secs	6	8
3	4	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	53	+30.6 secs	3	6
4	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	53	+31.1 secs	2	5
5	7	Fernando Alonso	Renault	53	+59.1 secs	8	4
6	2	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	53	+60.6 secs	4	3
7	6	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	53	+82.4 secs	15	2
8	15	Sebastian Vettel	RBR-Renault	53	+85.4 secs	9	1
9	3	Giancarlo Fisichella	Ferrari	53	+86.8 secs	14
10	17	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	53	+162.163 secs	17
11	10	Timo Glock	Toyota	53	+163.925 secs	16
12	1	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	52	Accident	1
13	12	Sebastien Buemi	STR-Ferrari	52	+1 Lap	19
14	9	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	52	+1 Lap	11
15	8	Romain Grosjean	Renault	52	+1 Lap	12
16	16	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	51	+2 Laps	18
Ret	21	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India-Mercedes	22	Transmission	7
Ret	11	Jaime Alguersuari	STR-Ferrari	19	Gearbox	20
Ret	5	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	15	Engine	13
Ret	14	Mark Webber	RBR-Renault	0	Accident	10

BUTTON POWERS HIS WAY TO A THIRD WIN

Jenson takes the hat trick

Jenson Button has taken his third win on the dusty track at Bahrain, with Sebastian Vettel and Jarno Trulli, second and third.  He feels his run of victories is not set to last so he is enjoying the scent of victory while he can.

And get this:  He even lapped a Ferrari.

Didn't I pass that Ferrari once already?

It was a race that wrong-footed a lot of drivers who chose a harder compound tyre.  The BMWs seem to have done paticularly badly.

However it seems Jenson is resigned to the fact that the technological gap Brawn has over it’s competitors is narrowing rapidly.  Red Bull and Toyota are very much in the ascent.

But what of the old order?  Ferrari, McLaren and  Renault?  Well they had another weekend of frustration.  Only Lewis Hamilton came well in the points, in fourth.  He made good use of his KERS button to slingshot past Vettel at one point.  The first time anybody seems to have made any real use of the KERS system.

Vettel looks like he is ready to melt while Jenson does his Cheshire cat impression

But the race settled down not long after the first few laps and very little real battling took place.  Unlike the last two races, this race has been as hot and dry as an oven.

Hamilton: Without a paddle?

Well the soap opera on slicks that is Formula 1 season just gets more interesting.

After Australia we thought the ‘old world order’ (i.e. Ferrari, McLaren, Renault) may re-assert itself, but we were again proved wrong by the indefatigable Brawn team. With two back to back wins (or one and a half if you want to pick flies) they have made an unprecedented start to the season for a new team.

The unusual line up of Heidfeld, Button and Trulli

But yet again they started on Pole Position, and I confidently predict that, had the race run it’s full course, they would have won outright. I cannot take anything away from Jenson Button. After nine years in the sport who would begrudge him a good run of wins? Will he take the championship title? I think it is way too early to say.

But certainly do not write off the rest of the cast. Kimi Rakkonen, Filipe Massa, Lewis, Fernando, Jarno et all will certainly be back with a vengeance once they have devised a strategy to deal with the new regulations. I feel the real season will start, as it always does, when the season finally reaches Europe, within easier reach of the team’s factories.

Imagine trying to drive at 180 mph in this

So what of the race itself? Well it seemed to be a repeat of Melbourne until the heavens opened, reducing nearly a combined billion pounds worth of sports cars to little more than Bambi on the ice. It was just bad luck at the end of the day and nobody has questioned the competence of the stewards, the teams or the FIA in dealing with the matter.

You can see the pooling water under Nelson Piquet's Renault

Finally it seems that the FIA have Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren team squarely in their sights. His team have been stripped of all it’s points gained in Australia after the Jarno Trulli overtaking incident. I will let you see the footage yourself here:

Well I think the FIA are not after Lewis specifically, more they have a vendetta against the McLaren team as a whole. Remember it is only two years since the Ferrari stolen plans drama. Doubtlessly some of the people involved in the incident escaped retribution and powered Lewis to victory in 2008. The sporting director Dave Ryan, has been suspended and the recriminations seem far from over.

The embattled McLaren team hard at work

Let’s just hope Lewis and his intrepid band can regroup and come out fighting on all fronts. I am confident they will.

Not in Cowley you don't

For the latest updates go to: http://www.autosport.com or http://www.f1.com

Jenson Button and Brawn F1 off to a flying start

If, in December last, you had told Jenson Button and Rubens Barrachello that they would take a 1-2 victory in the opening Grand Prix of 2009, they would have laughed in your face.

Jenson Button wins at Albert Park

With a run of highly uncompetitive cars followed by the closing down of the Honda F1 project, their future looked gloomy.

When Brawn F1 emerged like the proverbial phoenix, little was really expected from it. The general consensus of opinion was that they were there to make up the numbers. If Formula 1 started losing teams, like the World Rally Championships, it would spell disaster.

But rather than playing the supporting cast, Ross Brawn, finally free from Honda’s agenda, drew up his war plan. In no more than three months he had developed the car he had wanted to build. Add to that some tricky rear diffusers and some highly tactical thinking with the car’s set up, and the plan was set in motion.

Virgin are Brawn F1's first sponsor

The Brawn train picked up speed when Sir Richard Branson came on board as a sponsor. He had some fancy new clean carbon fuel he needed to sell.

The car itself is, I have to say, not the prettiest. It is Ugly Betty on wheels, garish yellow and pristine white. It looks bare of sponsorship logos with Virgin being the honorable exception. But it can do the business alright.

The Brawn 001

Meanwhile where was Lewis Hamilton? Well he gave a first class drive, as always, but the car he was in was simply uncompetitive, which was a terrible shame. He did however, move up from eighteenth place to third place, a feat which reflects his enormous talent. I hope McLaren get the new model set-up sorted out before the third or forth race or they may not retain the title.

Sebastian Vettel finished with a completely new tyre set-up

The rest of the pack did their best, but they found the race hard going, with skids and accidents commonplace. The race even ended with the safety car still out.

Well I am sure Jenson certainly deserved his victory, only his second in nine seasons. Enjoy it lad, it doesn’t come around too often.