Sunday, April 5, 2009

Button wins Crazy Race

I am still not sure when the last time a race was suspended due to rain was, but Jenson Button proved that the Brawn GP car is good in wet weather conditions too and he claimed his 2nd straight victory and continue to prove Brawn GP’s dominance in this year’s FIA World Championship. We all expected rain to play a part but the rain caused soo much chaos that the person who is most affected is Nico Rosberg who started the race from 4th but took lead immediately after the first corner and was all set to give Williams its first win since the 2004 Brazilian GP. But the rain came and effectively screwed the race in what would have been his first win and also a sort of Williams’s revival.

Another driver who had a bad weekend was Vettel who was unlucky to be a given a 10 point penalty but also due to the rains had to spin out and finally managed to be placed a lowly 15th place only. Vettel will be hoping for better fortune as he goes into the Chinese GP while both Ferrari drivers need to pull something off as the last time Ferrari has failed to score points after the first 2 race of the season was in 1992 when Alesi and Capelli were driving for them and they managed to finish 4th in the constructors championship. Hope that does not happen this year and Stefano Domenicali is very clear that unless Ferrari improves both Kimi and Massa may be kicked out of the team for the next season.

While Ferrari was unlucky, Toyota has one of the luckiest races as Glock scored his first podium finish while Trulli managed to come 4th. If rain had not interfered, the Toyota drivers especially Trulli could have challenged the likes of Button and Rosberg for a race win. Nick Heidfeld yet again scored a 2nd place position for his BMW team and he is currently the most experienced driver yet to win a race as this is his 10th season in F1 and he is yet to finish on top of the grid. Others who managed points include Barrichello, Webber, Hamilton and Rosberg.

It is very unusual to see the likes of Ferrari and McLaren struggling while the likes of Brawn GP and Toyota doing extremely well. Luck has not been with both Red Bull and Williams as they have cars which is as good as atleast Toyota’s but still due to luck have not been scoring heavily especially when the big guns struggling. Renault and BMW continue to have mixed results while BMW atleast seem to have a package capable of scoring points, Renault is a struggling car and it manages to look decent thanks to the driving skills of former 2 time World Champion Alonso.

Force India continue to disappoint as the cars does not even seem like remotely capable of scoring points while STR looks good in patches and I am sure that in the next few races the team may score more points. On the whole the rain came and spoiled what would have been a brilliant race where the likes of Button, Rosberg, Trulli and even Vettel had a chance of scoring the win, but thanks to the rain we could not witness a great race. But the likes of 4 or even 5 teams having a chance of a victory bodes well for F1 and once the European season starts, we can have the likes of the traditional favourites like Ferrari, McLaren, BMW and Renault challenging the current leaders Brawn GP, Toyota, RBR and Williams to lead into what could be the best ever F1 season in decades. On the side note the last time a non-big 4 won a title was in 1978 when Lotus won the title.

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