Jenson Button claimed his third win of the year in front of Sebastian Vettel in the Bahrain Grand Prix. Pole-sitter Jarno Truli finished third after they changed to prime tires at first pit stop which clearly didn’t pay-off. Last year’s world champion Lewis Hamilton became forth after a successful start thanks to the KERS, whereas Rubens Barrichello could only finish fifth after the team switched him to a three stop strategy.
Kimi Raikkonen finished sixth and scored Ferrari’s first points of this year. Timo Glock was seventh after a very early first pit stop and switch to the harder tyre compound. The last point scorer was Fernando Alonso from Renault.
This race was the first race that the Safety car did not deployed this season. 19 cars finished the race, only Kazuki Nakajima retired from the race. Felipe Massa finished the race at 14th place after the collision with Raikkonen at first corner. Both BMW drivers were off the pace as they finished 18th and 19th respectively. They are looking forward to the next race which they will have updates on the car.
Two weeks later Formula1 will return to Europe. Some of the teams will introduce major updates and it will be interesting to watch how 2009 season will unfold from there on.
Here are the result of Bahrain Grand Prix;
| Pos | No | Driver | Team | Laps | Time/Retired | Grid | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 22 | Jenson Button | Brawn-Mercedes | 57 | 1:31:48.182 | 4 | 10 |
| 2 | 15 | Sebastian Vettel | RBR-Renault | 57 | +7.1 secs | 3 | 8 |
| 3 | 9 | Jarno Trulli | Toyota | 57 | +9.1 secs | 1 | 6 |
| 4 | 1 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 57 | +22.0 secs | 5 | 5 |
| 5 | 23 | Rubens Barrichello | Brawn-Mercedes | 57 | +37.7 secs | 6 | 4 |
| 6 | 4 | Kimi Räikkönen | Ferrari | 57 | +42.0 secs | 10 | 3 |
| 7 | 10 | Timo Glock | Toyota | 57 | +42.8 secs | 2 | 2 |
| 8 | 7 | Fernando Alonso | Renault | 57 | +52.7 secs | 7 | 1 |
| 9 | 16 | Nico Rosberg | Williams-Toyota | 57 | +58.1 secs | 9 | |
| 10 | 8 | Nelsinho Piquet | Renault | 57 | +65.1 secs | 15 | |
| 11 | 14 | Mark Webber | RBR-Renault | 57 | +67.6 secs | 18 | |
| 12 | 2 | Heikki Kovalainen | McLaren-Mercedes | 57 | +77.8 secs | 11 | |
| 13 | 11 | Sebastien Bourdais | STR-Ferrari | 57 | +78.8 secs | 20 | |
| 14 | 3 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 56 | +1 Lap | 8 | |
| 15 | 21 | Giancarlo Fisichella | Force India-Mercedes | 56 | +1 Lap | 17 | |
| 16 | 20 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 56 | +1 Lap | 19 | |
| 17 | 12 | Sebastien Buemi | STR-Ferrari | 56 | +1 Lap | 16 | |
| 18 | 5 | Robert Kubica | BMW Sauber | 56 | +1 Lap | 13 | |
| 19 | 6 | Nick Heidfeld | BMW Sauber | 56 | +1 Lap | 14 | |
| Ret | 17 | Kazuki Nakajima | Williams-Toyota | 48 | +9 Laps | 12 |
What a drive by Jenson Button. He is really going to be the champion it seems. Also a very disappointing result for Toyota. And i’m really sad for BMWs.
Again first lap crashes then an awful race. What are you doing BMW ?!?!?!
It was really an interesting race, It would have been a very different story if Button couldn’t managed to pass Hamilton at the beginning of the race.
BMW suffers from lack of updates, they will be better next race, also congrats to Ferrari for their very first points
I was pleased to see Button win the race but it might have been different if Vettel didn’t get held up for so long… Still this season is looking great.. would like it to be a close one as the other teams catch up on developement but I do think Jenson deserves a championship…