After Jenson Button qualified in pole and Rubens Barichello qualified in 2nd yesterday, it put F1 new boys Brawn GP in an incredible position to shake up Formula 1 and give the established teams something to think about. They certainly have just that, as Button and Barichello mirrored their starting positions to take the first two positions in the first race of the season and Brawn GP’s first ever race.
Jenson gets the win for Brawn GP
The race wasn’t without incident and if it hadn’t been for a collision between Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel, who were 2nd and 3rd, then Barichello would have had to settle for 4th place and Brawn GP would not have had their historic 1-2.
The aforementioned incident didn’t just affect Barichello as it also meant Lewis Hamilton came in 4th, picking up 5 points. Yes, this is the same Lewis Hamilton who has lacked in practice and yesterday qualified in 15th – only to then be dropped to 20th because of a gearbox change, but was then promoted to 18th when both Toyotas were disqualified from qualifying. You keeping up? There was even a point he was in 3rd but he must have passed Jarno Trulli after the safety car came out and he had to give that place, and 3rd on the podium, back to Trulli.
This has to be taken as a massive confidence boost for McLaren, who even before the Kubica/Vetel incident were making great improvements. Just a shame that Heikki Kovalainen had retire earlier in the race.
The full classification is as follows (courtesy of Forumla1.com):
| 1 | Jenson Button | Brawn-Mercedes | 58 | 1:34:15.784 |
| 2 | Rubens Barrichello | Brawn-Mercedes | 58 | +0.8 secs |
| 3 | Jarno Trulli | Toyota | 58 | +1.6 secs |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 58 | +2.9 secs |
| 5 | Timo Glock | Toyota | 58 | +4.4 secs |
| 6 | Fernando Alonso | Renault | 58 | +4.8 secs |
| 7 | Nico Rosberg | Williams-Toyota | 58 | +5.7 secs |
| 8 | Sebastien Buemi | STR-Ferrari | 58 | +6.0 secs |
| 9 | Sebastien Bourdais | STR-Ferrari | 58 | +6.2 secs |
| 10 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 58 | +6.3 secs |
| 11 | Nick Heidfeld | BMW Sauber | 58 | +7.0 secs |
| 12 | Giancarlo Fisichella | Force India-Mercedes | 58 | +7.3 secs |
| 13 | Mark Webber | RBR-Renault | 57 | +1 Lap |
| 14 | Sebastian Vettel | RBR-Renault | 56 | +2 Laps |
| 15 | Robert Kubica | BMW Sauber | 55 | +3 Laps |
| 16 | Kimi Räikkönen | Ferrari | 55 | +3 Laps |
| Ret | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 45 | +13 Laps |
| Ret | Nelsinho Piquet | Renault | 24 | Spin |
| Ret | Kazuki Nakajima | Williams-Toyota | 17 | Accident |
| Ret | Heikki Kovalainen | McLaren-Mercedes | 0 | Accident damage |
I’m delighted for Button, Barichello and Grand GP, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I am more pleased for Hamilton and McLaren getting some good points and Ferrari getting none!
Kudos also to Sebastian Buemi for getting a point in his first ever Formula 1 race.
We all new this season was going to be both interesting and exciting and this first race has proven just that. It was fun watching it whilst tweeting on Twitter and reading and sharing thoughts with other F1 fans. It’s also good to clear up moments of confusion.
It was also nice to have the Grand Prix back in BBC1 and therefore have no advert breaks – we got to see the whole race uninterupted, as it should be! Next race is in Malaysia and is only 1 week away, and at a slightly better start time for us here in the UK; 9am.
Wax On, Wax Off 