Unstoppable Button Stretching out at the Top

Brawn GP came up with another fine performance on Sunday afternoon as Jenson Button> took his third win in four races from Bahrain, taking his points tally to 31 points at the top of the Drivers’ World Championship title race.

The race began with Sebastian Vettel being the main threat to Button’s bid for another race win however the Red Bull driver lost out to Lewis Hamilton who broke through at the start of the race. Button took the opportunity to go past the German on the outside of turn one and from that point, never looked back.

Race leader Timo Glock made his first pitstop at Lap 11 followed by Jarno Trulli in the very next lap. On the 15th lap, Button came in for his own pitstop and that was the only point in the race where he lost his lead. He came back to the front of the pack when Vettel dived into the pits followed by Kimi Raikkonen. His second pitstop, on lap 37, saw him fall behind Vettel but only for 3 laps as the German had to make his stop too.

Vettel was never a serious threat to the championship points’ leader as he had to be careful about his tyres as well as keep an eye on his side view mirrors for oncoming challengers. Button kept moving away and Vettel was stuck dealing with a determined Jarno Trulli looking to grab second place. >

Toyota had a relatively disappointing day after both cars started from the front of the grid, with Trulli just grabbing a third place finish. Trulli claimed that Vettel went through mainly because of the performance of the prime Bridgestone tyres in the middle section of the race.

McLaren continued their improvements on the track and Hamilton, assisted initially by the KERS-assisted start, ended the race in 4th place. Rubens Barrichello was fifth after a soap opera race which saw him move up and down the grid a number of times with a 3-stop strategy. >

Ferrari finally got started in the season with the first points brought forth by Raikkonen’s sixth place finish. He used his KERS system to surge past Glock and fought off Glock to the chequered flag. With Glock in seventh, it was Fernando Alonso who came in on the final points’ spot after fending off a late surge by Nico Rosberg.

The other scarlet race car of Felipe Massa came in at fourteenth after he was forced to stop for an unplanned pitstop following a melee at the first corner of the opening lap. Fisichella had collided with the Ferrari on the opening lap and later went on to hold up the race leader Button on the 51st lap.

Button has consolidated his position on the top of the standings over Barrichello who lies 12 points behind on 19. Brawn GP are leading at the top of the grid in the Constructors’ World Championship race with a 22.5 points lead over Red Bull with 50 points.