Jenson Button - Race Winner

The Malaysian Grand Prix was another ripper, but was unfortunately cut-short by a huge rain storm. Personaly, I was hoping for a bit of rain on race day but it was absolutely chucking it down making racing impossible. When conditions were deemed to be too dangerous, the race was red-flagged after 32 laps of phenomenal racing. There were talks of a restart, but with a huge amount of standing water on the track and quickly-fading light, it never happened. At the end of all the mayhem, it was Jenson Button’s Brawn GP car which was sitting pretty in front of the start-finish straight. Nick Heidfeld and Timo Glock were the other podium finishers.

The Malaysian Grand Prix was just the fifth time in formula 1 history when only half points have been awarded (to teams and drivers). This is a scoring system employed when a race fails to go even 75% of the total distance. The order at the end of lap 31 was decided to be taken as the final result. This proved rather unfortunate for Timo Glock, who was sitting 2nd on the grid when the red flag had come on after he had passed Heidfeld on the 32nd lap.

Button was again on pole but got off to a poor start this time. He fell to 4th place behind a rocketing Fernando Alonso on his KERS-equipped Renault,

Fernando Alonso

who had started 9th. Button however won the 3rd place back from Alonso on braking for turn 13 before the end of the first lap. Jarno Trulli had an impresssive saturday qualifying which earned him a front-row start. But on sunday, it was Nico Rosberg’s Williams which grabbed the lead going into turn 1 in the opening lap. By the end of lap 1, the order thus read Rosberg, Trulli and Button. Then came Alonso’s heavily fuelled Renault and a lot of quicker cars who got bottled-up behind him.

The rain was always expected for the Malaysian Grand Prix, but it was a question of ‘when’. The Ferrari and Kimi Raikkonen got it completely wrong, when their gamble of coming out on full-wet tyres on a dry track went fully wrong. He ended-up loosing about 20 seconds on each lap and by the time the rain eventually came down, he had destroyed his wet weather tyres as well. This was the second big blunder by the Maranello-based team in the weekend after they had decided not to run Massa for another lap in Q3 qualifying, hoping that the time posted would be sufficient. The Brazilian ended up in 16th place and just outside Q2. The Ferrari’s are thus still without any points and is off to one of their worst starts to a championship.

At the end of the first round of pit stops, it was Jenson Button who gained the lead, after the British driver was able to run longer than Rosberg and Trulli. The entire field was still on slicks, as that was the logical thing to do on a dry track. However, the clouds were getting very low and the rain finally started coming down at the end of lap 21. Almost the entire field dashed into the pits for full-wet tyres, with one exception. Timo Glock came out on intermediate tyres, and within a few laps, it was clear that he had made the right choice as the rain fell lightly at first. Glock carved through the pack and was almost 10 seconds a lap faster than his rivals. He moved into 2nd place very soon and then into the race lead as well, when Button decided to go for inters himself.

Race Red-Flagged

Very soon, the rain started coming down heavily and after just a single lap on his set of inters, Button had to go back to full-wet tyres. Glock had by then worn-out of his inters and had to make a stop himself. Jenson Button was thus, still leading the race. With the heavy downpour and the conditions becoming close to impossible, there were cars slipping and sliding around all over the place. Fernando Alonso had a spin but hung-on. Giancarlo Fisichella and Sebastian Vettel were some of the casualities and the safety car was soon deployed on lap 31. Even before the cars could form-up behind the Mercedes, the red flag was out. Then, began the game of guesing. Would they restart the race? Or would the results be back-dated?

Soon, the announcement came that the race would stand abandoned and the order at the end of lap 31 would be considered as the results. The order thus read – 1.Buton 2.Heidfeld 3.Glock 4.Trulli 5.Barichello 6.Webber 7.Hamilton 8.Rosberg. For the first time in 18 years, a formula 1 race had failed to make 75% of race distance and thus half-points were awarded. Button extended his champioship lead. Barichello stayed at 2nd place and Trulli was in the 3rd spot.

The circus now moves to China, but there are two weeks before the next race. Brawn is setting the pace at the moment with Ferrari, McLaren and Reanult left playing catch-up. But, the double-decker diffuser which had created a lot of controversy and believed to be the reason behind the scorching pace set by the Brawn and Toyota cars, will come under scrutiny again. The FIA International Court of Appeal will have a hearing scheduled for the trick diffusers. If the FIA decides to ban the trick-diffuser, we could even see the points stripped from the Brawns, Toyotas and Williams. Personally, I wouldn’t like this as the diffuser design has shaken-up the field and we are getting to see some awesome racing. So, we can’t predict what would be the order of the field when we reach China in two weeks time. If the diffusers get the nodd, we could see all the teams begining their work on the new double-decker diffuser design(Probably, they already have). And if they are deemed illegal, it would turn around the field and we can’t predict who would have the advantage in Shanghai. So, it’s all the more reasons not to miss the Chinese Grand Prix in two weeks time.

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1. 2010 Formula 1 Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix (Kuala Lumpur)
2. 2009 Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
3. Bahrain Grand Prix 2009 – Button Rules Bahrain!!!
4. Chinese Grand Prix 2009 – Another wet race
5. 2009 Formula 1 Singtel Singapore Grand Prix