Bahrain Grand Prix 2009 – Button Rules Bahrain!!!
Jenson Button(and Brawn GP) made it three wins out of four races this season, but for the first time, he took the chequered flag for a victory(In Melbourne, it was behind a safety car, and in Malaysia, he was sitting parked on the start-finish straight when he got confirmation of his win). The young German Sebastian Vettel finished 2nd for the Red Bull and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli completed the podium in Bahrain.
It was a tidy drive from Jenson Button, who didn’t put a foot wrong on Sunday. He started from 4th, but was abe to
squeeze past Vettel(round the outside) in Turn One. From then on, he just had to sit back and wait for the lightly-fueled Toyota’s to pit. He then only lost the race lead during his first pit stop. Sebastian Vettel was the best of the rest, and looked calm and assured on his way to the second step of the podium. Towards the end of the race though, he came under some pressure from Trulli’s Toyota. Trulli himself, was pretty disappointed with his third place finish as he believed that this was a good chance to grab the first victory for Toyota, having sealed an all-Toyota front row start on Saturday’s qualifying. However, the Toyotas seem to be quick only when the fuel load is very low.
Lewis Hamilton had a pretty strong race as he shot into the 3rd place by the end of the first corner using his KERS-enabled McLaren. But, he couldn’t hold on to it for too long. However he was happy with the 4th place finish as he felt the Toyotas, Red Bulls and Brawns were very fast in the high-speed corners of Sakhir. The McLaren was still
struggling for grip, but Lewis felt they are on the way forward. Rubens Barichello had an up and down afternoon. The Brawn team tried a 3 stop strategy with him but he could only manage a 5th place finish.
And finally, Ferrari has scored some points through Kimi Raikkonen’s 6th place finish. It was a pretty good drive from the Finn who even passed Glock(possibly using his KERS), but was then challenged all the way to the checkered flag by the German.However, all’s not well with the Ferrari just yet. Felippe Massa had another forgettable race. He had to make a very early pit stop owing to a first-corner accident. Also, there was some problem with his KERS which forced the team to disengage it, which meant Massa carried the disadvantage with the KERS, without having the advantage it offers.
Timo Glock was another disappointed toyota driver at 7th. He was the first off the blocks and lead the early laps of the race in front of his pole-sitting team-mate. But, he struggled for grip on the prime tyres (the harder of the two compounds available for this race) which he used during his second stint. Fernando Alonso was the final point scorer at Bahrain and had a prety eventless race.
The next stop in the formula 1 calendar is the Spanish Grand Prix, which would kick-start the European leg of the Formula1 calendar. It is expected that as the season moves-on, we would see the McLaren and Ferrari closing the gap with Brawn, Toyota and RedBull. Also, the two weeks available to the teams would allow them to bring in a lot of upgrades to the Circuit de Catalunya, which is a high downforce circuit. The season can only get more exciting from here on.
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