Jenson Button wasn't cheering after the Belgian Grand Prix

Kaikkonen’s KERS system played a major role in the beginning of the race as Raikkonen used wasted no time using his KERS to slingshot past the Italian on the fifth lap. He had Giancarlo Fisichella in the Force India offering on his tail the whole way keeping him honest through out the race on the first medium down-force circuit of the 2008 Formula One season. Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel had a strong race and was closing on the two leaders as they crossed the finish line. Raikkonen crossed the finish line 0.9 seconds ahead of Fisichella and 2.9 seconds in front of Vettel.

There were two accidents that marred the opening laps of the race that changed the outcome for a number of the racers. Jenson Button’s hopes of improving his lead in the Formula One standings were put on hold until the next race. His Brawn GP was hit by Romain Grosjean’s Renault ending his day, while Hamilton Lewis’s McLaren was tagged by Jaime Alguersuari’s Toro Rosso while the two were trying to avoid the melee.

Renault’s Fernando Alonso looked like he might be on track for a good day after he had a good opening to the race. Unfortunately, a slight brush with Force India’s Adrian Sutil on the opening lap damaged his left front wheel and eventually forced him to retire from the race.

Heikki Kovalainen executed a one-stop race strategy in his McLaren that allowed him to stay ahead of Brawn GP’s Rubens Barrichello and finish sixth. He was just able to make it over the line in front of a closing Nico Rosberg, who had yet another strong race for Williams to take the final point in the Belgian Grand Prix.

The final line of the race see Barrichello get two points closer to Button, who is still 18 points in front of the Brazilian. Vettel moves in front of Webber with the points he achieved in this race, with 53 to the Australian’s 51.5. Brawn still leads in the constructors’ championship, with Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren following in order.

‘Image: Zuma Press”

Post from: EveryJoe

Raikkonen Wins the Belgian Grand Prix

Brawn GP has a little work to do if they want to win the constructors' championship

Lewis Hamilton started the race in the lead due to his KERS, along with team mate Keikki Kovalainen, which put Rubens Barrichello in third after the first few minutes of the race. Just behind them, Kimi Raikkonen was sitting in fourth, also due to KERS assist. Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel tagged along behind them for awhile, along with Brawn GP’s Jenson Button, but both soon fell off the pace set by the leaders.

Hamilton was in front until his first pit stop on Lap 16, which allowed Kovalainen to take the lead for one lap, until he was forced to pit. This was Barrichello’s moment as he was able to run for another three laps before he was forced to pit for fuel.

Hamilton had a 3.6 second lead over Barrichello as they made it to Lap 36, but when he went to pit a lap later McLaren didn’t have the right tires ready. They had to request that he stay out on the track for one more lap and this cost them considerable time. The team insists this mistake didn’t cost them the win but the delay allowed Barrichello the time he needed to get into the pit and get some fuel and tires. By the time he came out of the pits he was still ahead of Hamilton, so the pit problems with tires did cost the team some time.

Hamilton kept the pressure on Barrichello all the way through the last laps but couldn’t close the gap to more than a 2.3 second gap. Barrichello was able to back off the speed a little during the last few laps and crossed the finish line over 2 seconds ahead of Hamilton.

This win increases Brawn’s constructor’ championship lead over Red Bull and puts Barrichello into second place in the drivers standings.

“Image: Zuma Press”

Post from: EveryJoe

Reubens Barrichello Wins in Valencia

Brawn GP has dominated the 2009 Formula One season so far

To date Brawn has won six of the eight races completed and currently have a healthy points lead in the constructors championship. Let’s do a quick run through of the Formula One season so far…

What a turn around for the former Honda team! After a terrible 2008 in which Honda withdrew its support, they spent the off season battling to keep the team afloat, before ending in a 2009 Formula One season in which they have been on top of the podium race after race.

Ross Brawn has done an excellent job driving his team through a rough period and putting two experienced drivers in Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello in a position to race and win. Honda showed great maturity in realizing their RA 109 just wasn’t going to be the car to win for them and re-focused their development on the BGP001. Their courage paid off as their new entry was surprisingly fast in pre-season tests and hasn’t disappointed them so far in 2009. To date the BGP001 has only retired from one race in eight tries and has put at least one Brawn driver on the podium in every race so far.

There has also been plenty of controversy surrounding Brawn’s dominance, which was due to the BGP’s innovative double diffuser, something that the other teams protested. In the end however the FIA’s Court of Appeal found in favor of Brawn and they were clear to put the pedal to the metal.

The last race at Silverstone did see Red Bull make a dent in Brawn’s advantage, but we have yet to see if this was a fluke of a true improvement on the part of Red Bull.

“Image: Zuma Press”

Post from: EveryJoe

Brawn GP’s 2009 Formula One Dominance

Button takes rain-filled and confusing Formula One race in Malaysia

Jenson was fortunate to be in the lead when the expected rain started to change the track conditions on the 22^nd lap, despite pitting twice during these laps to make the switch to tires more suited to the conditions. He was still leading when he made it onto the track again, but Timo Glock put his car into top gear and was able to over take Button, until the 29^th lap, when Button was able to re-establish the lead as Glock was forced to pit and put his wet-running tires onto his car.

The weather once again took hold of the race again during the 31^st lap as the racers were forced to pit to put their dry tires back on, but Button resumed the race still in the lead, while Glock was battling with Nick Heidfeld for second place as the red flag came out on the 32^nd lap.

The race order was Button, Glock, Heidfeld, Trulli, Barrichello, Hamilton, Rosberg, Webber, Massa, Bourdais, Alonso, Nakajima, Piquet, Raikonen, Sutil, Vettel, Buemi, and Fisichella when the red flag was pulled out.

The race officials took awhile to make a decision about whether they would restart as the rain looked like it was easing, but the sky once again turned dark and dangerous as night invaded the day. At 18:52 they finally decided to call the race, with Button in the lead, and the final race order being the one on the 31^st lap. This left the final race order see Button, Heidfeld, Glock, Trulli, Barrichello, Webber, Hamilton, Rosberg finishing well enough to gain points in the overall Formula One official points race.

Images Newscom.com

Post from: EveryJoe

Button Wins Malaysian Grand Prix

Malaysia is next on the schedule

Raikkonen and Massa were at the head of the track times, dominating the second session for Ferrari, which is a good sign.
Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber ran much better, being very close in time, but Vettel did a little better, finishing with the third best time of the day.
Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima had the two fastest laps in the first session, with the German having a good afternoon on the track and Nakajima making showing positive signs after his unfortunate finish at the Australian Grand Prix.
Brawn didn’t set the pace as expected this time, as Barrichello and Button seemed to be spending more time getting familiar with their cars on a hot track.
Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton spent an uneventful morning trying new bodywork, but seemed to lack grip on the hot track, especially in the corners.
Nelson Piquet and Fernando Alonso seemed to be at odds with their Renault cars, but Piquet had a better second session and his car didn’t show any major issues.
Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock took their Toyotas spent the morning concentrating on getting their cars set properly for the Malaysian race, rather than trying to compete for the best lap times.
Sebastien Buemi and Sebastien Bourdais are driving for Toro Rosso and seemed quite content with their cars performance, so far, with both working on balancing the cars right for Malaysia.
Adrian Sutil had a problem free day for the most part, which allowed him to focus on car setup, but his car VJM02 seemed to be having problems with its understeer. Giancarlo Fisichella had an eventful day, trying to fight his cars poor grip and terrible traction, which had him crashing his expensive vehicle in the afternoon session.

Images Newscom.com

Post from: EveryJoe

Getting Ready for Malaysian GP