Brawn GP 1st and 2nd in Australian Grand Prix

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.

F1 Broadcast times on BBC for Australian Grand Prix

Prompted by searches that reached this blog, here are the broadcast times on BBC for the Australian Grand Prix this weekend, courtesy of F1 on BBC.co.uk:

Qualifying – Saturday 28th March – 5.00am

Grand Prix – Sunday 29th March – 6.00am

Australian Grand Prix

My prediction for Melbourne:

Qualifying:

1st – Felipe Masa
2nd – Jenson Button
3rd – Lewis Hamilton

Race Result:

1st – Lewis Hamilton
2nd – Felipe Massa
3rd – Kimi Raikkonen

Jenson Button will retire through engine trouble.

My predictions are probably ruled a lot by my heart and not so much my head, as I am a die hard McLaren fan!

The McLaren team are on Twitter here: Twitter.com/TheFifthDriver

FIA back down as F1 teams object

The following is a press release from the FIA:

On 17 March, the FIA World Motor Sport Council unanimously rejected FOTA’s proposed amendment to the points system for the Formula One Drivers’ Championship. The ‘winner takes all’ proposal made by the commercial rights holder (who had been told that the teams were in favour) was then approved.

If, for any reason, the Formula One teams do not now agree with the new system, its implementation will be deferred until 2010.

Well, as it happens the Formula One teams were not in agreement and so the win system will wait till 2010 to be introduced, as long as the Formula One teams agree one would assume?

I’d just about got my head round the new system but I’m not upset to get back to the old system, as I’m sure the driver’s won’t be either, a few of whom had spoken out about the new system over the past few days.

In some promising news as a McLaren fan, testing in Jerez, Spain went a bit better and even culminated with Heikki Kovalainen posting one of the fastest laps of the week, only to have that beaten by almost half a second as Kazuki Nakajima recorded the fastest lap of the whole week’s testing.

(c) AFP and Yahoo. Kovi in Jerez

Though it’s clear things are still not 100% at McLaren, they do seem to be improving, even just a little bit. I can only hope that between now and the first race in Australia, in just 9 days, McLaren will have sorted things out and both Hamilton and Kovalainen can be competitive. Roll on the 2009 Formula 1 season, one that is full of promise and intrigue.