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

The Wizard Of OZ - F1 Qualifying In Australia

Jenson Button took his first pole position in three years at the Australian Grand Prix, as Brawn GP utterly dominated qualifying on its debut. Image Credit: BBC

The Wizard Of OZ - F1 Qualifying In Australia

World famous British businessman, Richard Branson, stepped up and threw his sponsorship muscle behind one of the more promising F1 ventures to come along in this era of slick tires and modified areodynamics.

Virgin Group has become the first major sponsor of the Formula 1, Mercedes-powered, Brawn GP team. It is not a title sponsorship deal and the team's official name will remain unchanged for now.

Branson, who had been linked with a takeover of the former Honda team recently, said that moves to cut costs in the sport and a push by the American Gevo company, in which Virgin is investing, to come up with a clean fuel for the sport were contributing reasons for his decision to jump into F1 team sponsorship.

"I am very, very excited to be here today," said Branson, who had flown direct from London after agreeing the deal. "A few weeks ago I said that there were two preconditions for us to get involved with F1.

One was that the costs of F1 should come down. It was just too expensive to get enough new entrants into the sport, and the second one was that F1 should be spear-heading a clean-fuel revolution.", said Bransom at the announcement ceremony at Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia.

Branson's pledge of sponsorship support was soon rewarded, in that, the two drivers that pilot the Mercedes-powered Brawn GP machines placed the cars in P1 and P2 during qualifying for the OZ Grand Prix event to be run tomorrow.

Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello confirmed the pace showed previously in testing, with the Briton, Button securing pole position ahead of the Brazilian, Barrichello ... and with rival teams admitting Brawn GP's cars were simply out of reach.

The Brawn team raced as Honda last season but secured their survival with Mercedes engines only at the beginning of this month following Honda's decision to quit F1 because of the global financial crisis. From Saturday, the Virgin logo was added to the previously unbranded white cars - and a new colour scheme will be unveiled at next weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix. Image Credit: BBC

This excerpted and edited from autosport.com -

Button leads all-Brawn front row in Oz
By Matt Beer, autosport.com - Saturday, March 28th 2009, 07:03 GMT

Jenson Button took his first pole position in three years at the Australian Grand Prix, as Brawn GP utterly dominated qualifying on its debut.

Rubens Barrichello led Button in a Brawn one-two in both Q1 and Q2, with a clear margin over their rivals in each session.

But in the pole position shoot-out it was Button who emerged on top, beating Barrichello to first place by 0.305 seconds.

Button had taken provisional pole by half a second on his first run, before being briefly deposed by his teammate, but he was able to redress the balance moments later.

Although Brawn GP is effectively a renamed Honda operation, it is officially classed as a new team - which makes today's result the first time a new entrant has taken pole for its debut since the factory Mercedes-Benz team in the 1954 French GP.

The grid line-up was strikingly different to the previous season's form, with Red Bull and Williams among Brawn's main rivals, Ferrari near the foot of the top ten, and the McLarens 14th and 15th.
Reference Here>>

How the field sets up after penalties (the two Toyota cars that originally placed P6-Glock and P8-Trulli, will have to start from the back of the grid for having rear wing elements that were too flexible)

Melbourne results (BBC) -

Final Qualifying
Saturday, 28 March 2009
Position Country Driver Car number Team Qualifying time
1 great britain Jenson Button 22 Brawn-Mercedes 1:26.202
2 brazil Rubens Barrichello 23 Brawn-Mercedes 1:26.505
3 germany Sebastian Vettel 15 Red Bull-Renault 1:26.830
4 poland Robert Kubica 5 BMW Sauber 1:26.914
5 germany Nico Rosberg 16 Williams-Toyota 1:26.973
6 brazil Felipe Massa 3 Ferrari 1:27.033
7 finland Kimi Raikkonen 4 Ferrari 1:27.163
8 australia Mark Webber 14 Red Bull-Renault 1:27.246
9 germany Nick Heidfeld 6 BMW Sauber 1:25.504
10 spain Fernando Alonso 7 Renault 1:25.605
11 japan Kazuki Nakajima 17 Williams-Toyota 1:25.607
12 finland Heikki Kovalainen 2 McLaren-Mercedes 1:25.726
13 switzerland Sebastien Buemi 12 Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:26.503
14 brazil Nelson Piquet Jr 8 Renault 1:26.598
15 italy Giancarlo Fisichella 21 Force India-Mercedes 1:26.677
16 germany Adrian Sutil 20 Force India-Mercedes 1:26.742
17 france Sebastien Bourdais 11 Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:26.964
18 great britain Lewis Hamilton 1 McLaren-Mercedes
19 germany Timo Glock 10 Toyota
20 italy Jarno Trulli 9 Toyota

After this qualifying performance from Brawn GP, backed by the Virgin Group's timely sponsorship ... Richard Branson can now be called, for the moment, the Wizard of OZ.

... notes from The EDJE