2009 F1 : Button makes it three wins from four in Bahrain

2009 Bahrain Grand Prix Winner : Jenson Button - Brawn-Mercedes

SAKHIR, Bahrain : April 26, 2009 - Jenson Button (Brawn-Mercedes) moved further ahead in the Formula One world championship when he won the Bahrain GP, but he had to work for it.


There were smiles again in the Red Bull garage as Sebastian Vettel finished second.

Pole-sitter Jarno Trulli (Toyota) dropped down the order during the race but managed to fight back to finish third, with Toyota's first F1 victory still frustratingly out of reach.

McLaren showed that the team was getting more on terms with the front-running teams with reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton coming home fourth, while Ferrari managed to score its first points of the season when Kimi Räikkönen finished sixth.

Timo Glock made a better start than pole-sitting team mate Jarno Trulli to take the initial lead as the race got under way under sweltering desert conditions.

As the two Toyotas got away in front, Hamilton made the best start to get past into second place on the opening lap before being passed by Trulli and then Jenson Button (Brawn-Mercedes).

Trulli and Glock's front row positions were partly due to them being the lightest cars in the top ten. A realistic threat would come from Sebastian Vettel who was third on the grid, but with significantly more fuel on board.

Adrian Sutil had been penalised by the FIA stewards for impeding Mark Webber's hot lap in qualifying, and he was demoted three places to 19th. The teams had a choice between medium and super-soft compounds, and all of them chose the super-softs for their first stint.

Rubens Barrichello (Brawn-Mercedes) passed the Ferrari of Kimi Räikkönen on the first lap while Kazuki Nakajima (Williams-Toyota) returned to the pits for a new front wing after contact with another car.

Glock managed to open up a two-second gap over Trulli before the Italian reeled off a couple of fastest laps to reduce the gap to under two seconds.

Vettel made two small errors on lap 9, allowing Barrichello to close right up and begin challenging for fifth place.

On lap 10 Glock pitted for medium tyres and fuel. Trulli led for one lap before also returning to the pits for fuel and tyres, followed by Button. Once they returned to racing, Glock was ahead of Trulli, but Button had passed them both.

Fernando Alonso (Renault) caught Trulli and began an aggressive challenge. He went around the outside of the Italian who was polite enough to let him force his way past instead of potentially taking them both out of the race.

Trulli was later involved in another dice with Barrichello on lap 37, with the two swopping places on a regular basis as they took different lines through the corners. On lap 41, Vettel pitted and rejoined ahead of Trulli, having made up a place. Barrichello was just 1.2 sec behind with Hamilton another 5 sec back.

BMW Sauber were having a frustrating afternoon. With a dozen laps left, Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld were embarrassingly in the last two places. Kubica tried to pass Nakajima, but spun on lap 47 to lose even more time.

With 10 laps remaining, Barrichello made a splash 'n dash stop, taking on the harder tyres and emerging a split second ahead of Räikkönen. Button was leading, followed by Vettel, Trulli and Hamilton with a 18 sec gap back to Barrichello. In an amazing display of reliability, all 20 starters were still running with eight laps to go before Nakajima returned to the garage and retirement.

As race leader Button caught up to lap Giancarlo Fisichella, the Italian appeared to try to race against him, and Button had to abort his pass and hang back until Fisichella understood who it was who was behind him.

Further ahead, Trulli in third was 1.1 sec behind Vettel who in turn was 9.5 sec behind race leader Button.

Despite not having the clear-cut advantage shown over the first two races, Jenson Button worked hard at Sakhir to score his third win of the season and further increase his championship lead.

Sebastian Vettel, a winner at Shanghai, was again on the podium with a strong run to second place, with pole-sitter Trulli third.

Jenson Button - Brawn-Mercedes

2009 F1 : CHINESE GRAND PRIX

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Time	Pts
1	22	Jenson Button	Brawn-Mercedes	1:31:48.182	10
2	15	Sebastian Vettel	RBR-Renault	+7.1 secs	8
3	9	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	+9.1 secs	6
4	1	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	+22.0 secs	5
5	23	Rubens Barrichello	Brawn-Mercedes	+37.7 secs	4
6	4	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	+42.0 secs	3
7	10	Timo Glock	Toyota	+42.8 secs	2
8	7	Fernando Alonso	Renault	+52.7 secs	1
9	16	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	+58.1 secs	-
10	8	Nelsinho Piquet	Renault	+65.1 secs	-
11	14	Mark Webber	RBR-Renault	+67.6 secs	-
12	2	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	+77.8 secs	-
13	11	Sebastien Bourdais	STR-Ferrari	+78.8 secs	-
14	3	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+1 Lap	-
15	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Mercedes	+1 Lap	-
16	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	+1 Lap	-
17	12	Sebastien Buemi	STR-Ferrari	+1 Lap	-
18	5	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	+1 Lap	-
19	6	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	+1 Lap	-
Ret	17	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	Oil pressure	-

Driver Championship Standings :

Pos	Driver	Nationality	Team	Points
1	Jenson Button	British	Brawn-Mercedes	31
2	Rubens Barrichello	Brazilian	Brawn-Mercedes	19
3	Sebastian Vettel	German	RBR-Renault	18
4	Jarno Trulli	Italian	Toyota	14.5
5	Timo Glock	German	Toyota	12
6	Mark Webber	Australian	RBR-Renault	9.5
7	Lewis Hamilton	British	McLaren-Mercedes	9
8	Fernando Alonso	Spanish	Renault	5
9	Nick Heidfeld	German	BMW Sauber	4
10	Heikki Kovalainen	Finnish	McLaren-Mercedes	4
11	Nico Rosberg	German	Williams-Toyota	3.5
12	Kimi Räikkönen	Finnish	Ferrari	3
13	Sebastien Buemi	Swiss	STR-Ferrari	3
14	Sebastien Bourdais	French	STR-Ferrari	1
15	Felipe Massa	Brazilian	Ferrari	0
16	Adrian Sutil	German	Force India-Mercedes	0
17	Nelsinho Piquet	Brazilian	Renault	0
18	Giancarlo Fisichella	Italian	Force India-Mercedes	0
19	Kazuki Nakajima	Japanese	Williams-Toyota	0
20	Robert Kubica	Polish	BMW Sauber	0

Constructor Championship Standings :

Pos	Team	Points
1	Brawn-Mercedes	50
2	RBR-Renault	27.5
3	Toyota	26.5
4	McLaren-Mercedes	13
5	Renault	5
6	BMW Sauber	4
7	STR-Ferrari	4
8	Williams-Toyota	3.5
9	Ferrari	3
10	Force India-Mercedes	0

[Source : Super Wheels , BRAWN GP]