Another cracking race that has thrown up another new winner. Red Bull. Sebastien Vettel led Mark Webber home for a 1-2!. The Brawn's of Button and Barrichello relegated to the role of bridemaid in 3rd and 4th. while Mclaren showed some improved form with Kovalainen and Hamilton coming in 5th and 6th.
The race began wet, and ended wet, and in the middle, it was wet. No topsy turvy-ness here! After 8 laps behind the safety car the race was under way and after just 1 full speed lap, Vettel was 2.4s ahead of his Aussie team mate. Webber maintained the gap there after while easily pulling away from the Brawns. Only a slight mistake caused Webber more time before his pit stop in lap 14, pitting 2 laps earlier than scheduled. Vettel was to pit on lap 15.
Behind the leaders in the early stint, Barrichello and the amazing Buemi was 4th and 5th. Trulli had formed his infamous Trulli train, consisting of both Ferrari's, Mclarens and Bourdais. The Toyota man had no grip at all at a track where he has still failed to score a single point!
Alonso and Rosberg, having qualified 2nd and 7th, pitted under the first safety car for fuel and rejoined at the back. Alonso would haul his renault up to 9th. Rosberg would finish 15th. Im struggling to remember when a Williams was quick in the rain!
After the red bull stops, it was a brawn 1-2, but it soon became clear that they didnt have the outright speed in the rain to really match these Red Bull men. Interestingly both Webber and Vettel especially had worries about their driveshafts, and quite possibly whatever risk of them braking, would have been reduced by the rain.
Although Button put in some fastest laps up to that point, his gap over Vettel was never enough to challenge for the lead. Meantime the Trulli train had really come off the rails after Kubica slammed up the back of the Italian, smashing the Toyota rear wing and ending his race. Kubica would require two nose changes and end possibly his worst ever grand prix 13th.
This incident coincided with the second safety car, which allowd the leading man of button to pit and rejoin in 2nd ahead of Mark Webber, now we would really get an indication of the how the Red Bull and Brawn compare. Barrichello rejoined in 6th behind the one stoppers of Raikkonen and Hamilton, Hamilton had been up to 4th but a couple of spins on his uber worn tyres had seen any progress halted.
As the safety car pulled in, Vettel again opened up a lead while Webber was hounding Button, ultimately forcing the Brit into a mistake and the end of the long back straight, only for Webber to make a mistake and let Button back ahead. This little fight would effectivly see the end of Webber's chance of victory. Webber soon made amends for his error by passing Button around the outside of turn 7.
The race remained in a status quo untill the second round of pitstops, Vettel pitted and re-joined just a couple of seconds behind Button, such was the Germans ability to pull out a huge lead during the Button-Webber scrap. Even though Button still had to pit for his final stop, Vettel wasted no time in reeling him in and passing him, The Brawns really were no match for Red Bull today.
So Vettel took his second, and Red Bulls first grand prix victory in their 5th season. Webber came home not far behind in second to emphasise just how dominant the team had been all weekend. It was a fully deserved victory and only Webber's battle with Button stopped the race being a real team mate fight!
Vettel will be delighted, a race win in only his third race for his new team. The guy is quite brilliant and this will have made up for his smash late on in Melbourne with Kubica when in-line for at least a 3rd.
Webber will be more than happy aswell, his best ever result and his 3rd podium. He matched Vettel pretty much all weekend and only a couple of errors stopped him from being right on his team-mates tail.
Button will be a relieved man, he said it was a real tough race and would have been happy to salvage third. He will have to be on the podium in Bahrain to really assert his championship lead, Red Bull have shown real pace and will be on a high next weekend. Mclaren also showed a big improvement and the Toyota is still fast.
Sebastien Buemi produced a quite brilliant drive, maintained 5th for a large part of the race early on and only a few errors late on saw him drop to 8th. His qualifying performace was also brilliant, getting the torro rosso into the top 10 shoot-out.
Spare a thought for Adrian Sutil. Monaco practice 2007- rain....Sutil fastest.Monaco 2008, 4th after a super drive with only a few laps to go....rammed by Raikkonen. China 2009, 6th with 6laps to go,another great drive.....simply aquaplaned at turn 5 while under pressure from hamilton. Fuji 2007, hauls spyker into 8th place and one point, his only piece of good fortune! The guy is brilliant in the rain and just needs good luck! He will have been happy to hear Viyja Mally'as praise of him, acknowledging it was a fine race by the german.
All in all another fine weekend of formula one. Bahrain next, unlikely that it will rain and this track always produces fine close racing!
My men of the race: Vettel, Buemi, Sutil.
Result
1 S.Vettel, Red Bull, 10points
2 M,Webber, Red Bull, 8points
3 J.Button, Brawn Gp, 6points
4 R.Barrichello, Brawn Gp, 5points
5 H.Kovalainen, Mclaren, 4points
6 L.Hamilton, Mclaren, 3points
7 T.Glock, Toyota, 2points
8 S.Buemi, Torro Rosso, 1point
9 F.Alonso,Renault
10 K.Raikkonen, Ferrari
11 S.Bourdais, Torro Rosso
12 N.Heidfeld, BMW
13 R.Kubica, BMW
14 G.Fisichella, Force India
15 N.Rosberg, Williams
16 N.Piquet, Renault
17 A.Sutil, Force India, Aquaplaned with 6 laps to go while in 6th place
18 K.Nakajima, Williams, Binned it at turn one.
19 F.Massa, Ferrari, car failure under the safety car while in 3rd.
20 J.Trulli, Toyota, no speed at all, mounted by Kubica and lost rear wing.
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