Congratulations to Jenson Button and the Brawn team, he won the world drivers championship and boy did he earn it! And the team won the constructors title in their first season. A barnstorming drive from 14th on the grid to 5th at the flag showed everybody just how good a driver Button is.
After a midseason struggle of qualyfying mistakes where he was far from the best driver, he managed to salvage enough points in races to keep him at the top of the standings, his race pace always very strong. But after starting 14th in Brazil, he had two choices, sit back and hope it works out for him, or go out and win it anyway.
He chose option number two.
An incident filled start saw Trulli Sutil and Alonso all crash out, with Trulli having a major word with Sutil live on camera, the italian was fined £6,000 for his outburst, after wrongly accusing Sutil of running him off the road.
So by the end of lap one Button was 9th with the safety car out, but Vettel was right behind him and Rubens was leading the race, so jb couldnt afford to wait around, when the safety car pulled in, Button disposed both of Roman Grosjean, his old mate from spa, and Kazuki Nakajima in less than a lap!
He then came up against Kamui Kobayashi, making his debut in place of the injured Timo Glock, the japanese driver put up a great, if somewhat reckless fight and Button took the best part of 20 laps and 3 attempts to get passed, when he finally did so, a yell of delight roared inside the Englishman's race helmet.
If anybody decides to host an overtakes of the year competition, it may be a one man show. All four of buttons moves in brazil was superb, grosjean was risky, but determined and wonderfully executed. Nakajima's was probably the simplest of the lot. Kobayashi left button with no idea what he would do next, and Buemi had no idea button was coming!
Add all this to his moves on Hamilton in Bahrain, Kovalainen in Monza and Kubica in Japan, it makes you wonder what the rest of the field are doing wrong.
Buttons day was eventually complete when Rubens Barrichello suffered a puncture with 7 laps to, the Brazilian just did not have the outright pace to win this race, as Webber won the race and a resurgent Robert Kubica raced home into second place, and anyway, Button had done enough to secure the title.
Webber strolled to his 2 career win, leaving people to wonder just where Vettel would have been had he got qualifying right. Kubica was second and Lewis Hamilton held off Vettel for the final podium place. Button was 5th ahead of Raikkonen, a solid drive from Buemi and Barrichello down in 8th after his puncture.
Nico Rosberg was also looking very strong untill a gearbox failure. Big points lost for the second time in three races for the Grove squad, and with BMW and Renault lurking behind them, they cud drop a couple places in the final round in Abu Dhabi. Team mate Nakajima was also in with a chance of points untill getting too close to fellow jap Kobayashi and spectacularly going off at turn four.
Kovalainen again got destroyed by Hamilton, while Kobayashi was fast, if somewhat wayward. Fisichella still cannot get used to the KERS braking system, while Liuzzi could not match Sutil's pace, Grosjean was poor, slipping back through the field alarmingly quickly, while Jaime Alguersari got another race distance under his belt.
Abu Dhabi next up, both championships wrapped up but there is still plenty to play for, Ferrari and Mclaren are battling for third in the championship while BMW and Renault are snapping at Williams heels.
New track, new atmosphre, who knows what will happen. Do not get too excited though, the track does not look like a great producer of close racing.
1. WEBBER Red Bull
2. KUBICA BMW +7.6s
3. HAMILTON McLaren +18.9s
4. VETTEL Red Bull +19.6s
5. BUTTON Brawn +29.0s
6. RAIKKONEN Ferrari +33.3s
7. BUEMI Toro Rosso +35.9s
8. BARRICHELLO Brawn +45.4s
9. KOVALAINEN McLaren +48.4s
10. KOBAYASHI Toyota +63.3s
11. FISICHELLA Ferrari +70.6s
12. LIUZZI Force India +71.3s
13. GROSJEAN Renault +1 lap
14. ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso +1 lap
R. NAKAJIMA Williams +41 laps
R. ROSBERG Williams +44 laps
R. HEIDFELD BMW +50 laps
R. SUTIL Force India +71 laps
R. TRULLI Toyota +71 laps
R. ALONSO Renault +71 laps
Fastest lap: WEBBER 1m13.733s (lap 25)
1. Jenson Button Brawn GP 89
2. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 74
3. Rubens Barrichello Brawn GP 72
4. Mark Webber Red Bull Racing 61.5
5. Lewis Hamilton McLaren Mercedes 49
6. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 48
7. Nico Rosberg Williams 34.5
8. Jarno Trulli Toyota 30.5
9. Fernando Alonso Renault 26
10. Timo Glock Toyota 24
11. Felipe Massa Ferrari 22
12. Heikki Kovalainen McLaren Mercedes 22
13. Robert Kubica BMW Sauber 17
14. Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 15
15. Giancarlo Fisichella Ferrari & Force India 8
16. Sebastien Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso 5
17. Adrian Sutil Force India 5
18. Sebastien Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso 2
1. Brawn GP 161
2. Red Bull Racing 135.5
3. McLaren Mercedes 71
4. Ferrari 70
5. Toyota 54.5
6. Williams 34.5
7. BMW Sauber 32
8. Renault 26
9. Force India 13
10. Scuderia Toro Rosso 7
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