F1 - Strong Drives, Crashes, And A Historic Win By Button In OZ

Jenson Button won the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Sunday, giving Brawn GP a victory in its first Formula One race. Image Credit: Oliver Multhaup /AP

F1 - Strong Drives, Crashes, And A Historic Win By Button In OZ

The following quote reflects the happenings down in the land of OZ. Basically, F1 has been turned on its head from last season and rule changes, the spec' changes, Kers, and all have shuffled the deck and not everyone is happy.

This excerpted and edited from BBC -

Tremendous scenes as Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello embrace and start celebrating in front of the adoring Melbourne crowd. Button is so excited, he looks like the Tazmanian Devil caught in a blender, and who can blame him? What a start to the season and what a race.

Well, we couldn't really have asked for a more explosive season-opener, could we?

A storybook finish for Brawn GP, a remarkable back-to-front run from Jarno Trulli and Lewis Hamilton, collisions aplenty involving the likes of Sebastian Vettel, Robert Kubica, Rubens Barrichello and Heikki Kovalainen, and still plenty of controversy over rear diffusers, safety car deployment and safety car overtaking to come.
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Lap 55 [of 57]: Unbelievable! Robert Kubica, attempting to pass Sebastian Vettel, collides with the Red Bull on Turn Three and both are wiped out. Vettel is too slow in Turns One and Two and Kubica eyes his chance, only for Vettel to tag his rear right wheel and both spin on to the grass. This race is Jenson Button's folks, with Rubens Barrichello second.
Reference Here>>

Eight of the 20 cars were either lapped (1), retired (4), or crashed out (3) at the end leaving only 12 cars running on the same lap.

The stand out performances have to be noted as coming from Lewis Hamilton driving the McLaren-Mercedes to P3 (elevated from P4 due to a penalty assessment) and the Toyota teammates who all started from the back of the grid with Jarno Trulli driving his pants off to P3 ... later penalized back to P12, and Timo Glock just missing (by 2 seconds behind the elevated Lewis Hamilton) the podium finishing at P4.

In the first post-race interview, Lewis Hamilton praises the "incredible job" done by his McLaren team after ending a difficult weekend by finishing fourth in the Australian Grand Prix. Hamilton was later promoted to third after a penalty for Toyota's Jarno Trulli. Image Credit: BBC

This excerpted and edited from The State -

Button wins F1's season-opening Australian GP
By CHRIS LINES - The State - Sunday, Mar. 29, 2009

Jenson Button won the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Sunday, giving Brawn GP a victory in its first Formula One race.

The Englishman led from start to finish, beating teammate Rubens Barrichello and Toyota's Jarno Trulli, with the race finishing under caution following a late crash.

Barrichello, a Brazilian, recovered after being slow off the line at the start, while Italy's Trulli was strong after starting from pit lane.

It was the first time since 1977 that a F1 team had won in its debut, and the third time that a team had finished first and second in its first attempt. Alfa Romeo did it in the first ever grand prix in Britain in 1950, and Mercedes did it at the French GP in 1954.

It was only the second GP win for Button, who is in his 10th year of F1. He averaged 121.649 mph (195.775 kph) at the 3.3-mile (5.3-kilometer) Albert Park circuit and finished in 1:34:15.784.

The win capped a remarkable turnaround for the former Honda team which was at risk of disbanding in the offseason when the Japanese automaker pulled out of F1. Team principal Ross Brawn took over the team, which has benefited from development spending for 2009 by its former owner last year.
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Further boosting Brawn GP spirits was the knowledge that the past three winners of the Australian GP went on to win the championship.
Reference Here>>

How the machines and their pilots fared (BBC):

Melbourne results
Full race timings
Sunday, 29 March 2009

Position Country Driver Car number Team Grid position Race time Points
1 great britain Jenson Button 22 Brawn-Mercedes 1 1:34:15.784 10
2 brazil Rubens Barrichello 23 Brawn-Mercedes 2 1:34:16.591 8
3 great britain Lewis Hamilton 1 McLaren-Mercedes 18 1:34:18.698 6
4 germany Timo Glock 10 Toyota 20 1:34:20.219 5
5 spain Fernando Alonso 7 Renault 10 1:34:20.663 4
6 germany Nico Rosberg 16 Williams-Toyota 5 1:34:21.506 3
7 switzerland Sebastien Buemi 12 Toro Rosso-Ferrari 13 1:34:21.788 2
8 france Sebastien Bourdais 11 Toro Rosso-Ferrari 17 1:34:22.082 1
9 germany Adrian Sutil 20 Force India-Mercedes 16 1:34:22.119 0
10 germany Nick Heidfeld 6 BMW Sauber 9 1:34:22.869 0
11 italy Giancarlo Fisichella 21 Force India-Mercedes 15 1:34:23.158 0
12 italy Jarno Trulli 9 Toyota 19 1:34:42.388 0
13 australia Mark Webber 14 Red Bull-Renault 8 lapped 0
RET germany Sebastian Vettel 15 Red Bull-Renault 3 retired, 56 laps 0
RET poland Robert Kubica 5 BMW Sauber 4 crash, 55 laps 0
RET finland Kimi Raikkonen 4 Ferrari 7 retired, 55 laps 0
RET brazil Felipe Massa 3 Ferrari 6 retired, 45 laps 0
RET brazil Nelson Piquet Jr 8 Renault 14 crash, 24 laps 0
RET japan Kazuki Nakajima 17 Williams-Toyota 11 crash, 17 laps 0
RET finland Heikki Kovalainen 2 McLaren-Mercedes 12 retired, 0 laps 0

... notes from The EDJE