Spanish Grand Prix 2009 – Brawn Domination Continues!!!
The European leg of the 2009 Formula 1 season got underway this weekend at the Circuit de Catalunya, Spain. As expected, all the teams brought-in a lot of upgrades. However, contrary to expectations, the pecking order remained largely unchanged. There was not much of ‘closing the gap’ by the Ferraris, McLarens or the Renaults. After the qualifying session on Saturday, the starting grid wore a typical 2009 look to it, dominated by the Brawn and the Red Bull cars. Jenson Button, the championship leader, put his car on pole at the closing stages of the qualifying session, pipping Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull and his team mate Reubens Barichello. Mark Webber was in P5 in the other Red Bull. The surprise package was Felippe Massa, who brought his Ferrari in P4 – his best start of the season.
Until Saturday, it looked like the Ferrari was a much improved team. But, the weekend was a comedy of errors for the Maranello-based team. They first repeated their Malaysia ‘qualifying blunder’, this time with Kimi Raikkonen. Hoping that the time set by the Finn would get them into Q2, they decided not to run him again in Q3. Just as it turned out in Malaysia, the Ferrari found their car edged to the 16th position and outside Q2. However, Massa had a good Q3 lap, and with a relatively heavy fuel load and being the only KERS runner towards the front end of the grid, things looked good. However, the team got their fuel calculations wrong on Sunday and poor Massa had to back-off to conserve fuel and get his car to the finish line after a good drive from him, which could have got him on the 3rd step of the podium. He thus fell prey to Vettel’s Red Bull and, in the last lap, to home-hero Fernando Alonso. Massa, thus, finished 6th. It was a thrilling last few laps for Fernando Alonso supporters, as they could see their hero gaining about 3 seconds a lap on Massa’s Ferrari, which was in ‘economy-mode’, and finally saw him passing Massa in the last lap.
The start of the race saw Reubens Barichello snatching the lead from his
team-mate. Reubens was clearly the quicker of the two over the weekend and Jenson had out-paced him only once – in Saturday’s final qualifying run. Massa shot-into 3rd place and Vettel was forced to squeeze-in behind him. There ensued a safety-car period(for 5 laps) after the opening lap, which was caused by Jarno Trulli’s spinning Toyota. Trulli had an off-track excursion and found himself spinning back into the track. He collected the two Toro Rosso’s and Adrian Sutil’s Force India. Thus, it was game-over for four cars at the end of lap 1, leaving a lot of debris at the first corner.
The Circuit de Catalunya has a reputation of being a track in which overtaking is very difficult, and it lived-up to it’s reputation. The gainers were the one’s who had good pit strategies and this is where Reubens Barichello lost the race with his team-mate. Jenson Button was on a 2-stop strategy whereas his team-mate was put on a 3-stopper. Three2tango can’t help feeling sorry for the Brazilian, who is again playing second-fiddle in a potentially championship winning car, after all those years with the Ferrari team in support role to Michael Schumacher. However, there were theories that the team planned to have 3-stop strategies for both their drivers, but decided to change Jenson’s race strategy after the safety car interruption in which fuel-consumption happens to be very low.
Mark Webber was another gainer with his pit-strategy. He was able to run longer in his second stint and came out in front of Vettel and Massa after his second stop. The other point-scorers were Nick Heidfeld for BMW Sauber and Nico Rosberg for Williams, in 7th and 8th respectively. It was a frustrating weekend for Lewis Hamilton, who found his McLaren not having made any improvement after the upgrades that the team brought-in. He sounded very disappointed with his car and even went-on to say that they stand no chance in this year’s championship. Coming from the Formula 1 depending champion and the lead driver for the McLaren F1 team, these were weak words as Lewis Hamilton is supposed to be the man who has to sheperd this team out of the mess they are in at the moment. However, there is no denying the fact that the McLarens are really struggling. ESPN-Star commentator Steve Slater went to the extend of describing the 2009 McLaren’s handling to be similar to a ‘super-market trolley’.
Kimi Raikkonen was another non-finisher after suspected electrical problems in the 18-th lap brought his Ferrari rolling to a halt. Fellow Finn Heikki Kovalainen also dropped out of the race with gearbox issues. The next stop in the Formula 1 calendar is the glamorous Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo, scheduled in two weeks time. The Brawn-Button combination seems to be running away with the 2009 titles at the moment. Ideally, three2tango would like to see others catch up soon, leading into a thrilling battle towards the end of the season. The Spanish Grand Prix did see a much-improved pace for the Ferrari, Renault and BMW Sauber teams. Monaco would, hopefully, see them close it down even further.
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