Buzzin F1 – Formula One Blog

Jenson Button - Malaysia 2009

Jenson Button took the victory for the second time for the Brawn GP team in a shortened 31 lap Malaysian Grand Prix after a heavy rain shower made the race impossible to complete.

Williams driver Nico Rosberg took the lead as the race got underway followed by the Toyota of Jarno Trulli. Button has tried to stay with the leader but ran wide on the first corner moving himself back to fourth place.

Button soon passed Renault driver Fernando Alonso who was in third position after a great start, and began to chase down the two car in front, both of which were running on lighter fuel loads.

On lap 18 and with rain imminently predicted, Kimi Raikkonen took a gamble by having full wets put on the Ferrari as the skies darkened.  This resulted in the team losing up to 20 seconds a lap on a dry track, however, just 4 laps later the rain did begin seeing cars diving into the pits for their wet tyre sets.

Everyone except Timo Glock in the second Toyota opted for full wet tyres, he went for intermediates as the rain at this point was still relatively light.  Glock appeared to have made a good choice and was 10 seconds a lap faster than the leading cars, moving the Toyota into second place and the other drivers returning to the pits for their intermediates.

As the Brawn team took on intermediates, Button not only caught Glock but passed him just as the heavens opened and the pits were flooded with cars yet again, returning to full wet tyres.

However, the rain was so severe that even on full wet tyres the cars struggled to stay on track and on lap 31 the safety car was deployed and the red flag was waved to stop the race.

After almost an hour of the cars lined up on the grid waiting to see if the race would restart, it was announced that the race would not continue and the results would be taken from the last full lap completed.

Button was followed in top spot by Nick Heidfeld in the BMW Sauber and Glock in the Toyota in third.  Trulli finished in fourth place in the second Toyota ahead of Rubens Barrichello in the second Brawn GP car and Mark Webber in the Red Bull.

Rosberg lost so many places due to the pit stop chaos he finally finished down in eighth place, however, the Ferrari team end the second round of the Championship still without a single point.  Raikkonen retired from the race as the red flag was waved after suffering a problem with the KERS system, while team-mate Felipe Massa finished down in ninth position.

Robert Kubica was one of the first to retire in the BMW Sauber just after the race began with an engine problem.  Also on the first lap, Heikki Kovalainen spun the McLaren, putting himself out of the race while Hamilton finished in seventh.

As the race was stopped before it was completed, the drivers were awarded just half of the normal points.  The teams and drivers now head to Shanghai for the Chinese Grand Prix on the 19th April.

Here are the results;

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time
 1.  Button        Brawn GP              (B)  55:30.622
 2.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber            (B)  + 22.722
 3.  Glock         Toyota                (B)  + 23.513
 4.  Trulli        Toyota                (B)  + 46.173
 5.  Barrichello   Brawn GP              (B)  + 47.360
 6.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault      (B)  + 52.333
 7.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  + 60.733
 8.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota       (B)  + 71.576
 9.  Massa         Ferrari               (B)  + 76.932
10.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  + 102.164
11.  Alonso        Renault               (B)  + 109.422
12.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota       (B)  + 116.130
13.  Piquet        Renault               (B)  + 116.731
14.  Raikkonen     Ferrari               (B)  + 142.841
15.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault      (B)  +  1 lap
16.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  +  1 lap
17.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes  (B)  +  1 lap
18.  Fisichella    Force India-Mercedes  (B)  +  2 lap

Fastest lap: Button, 1:36.641

Not classified/retirements:

Driver        Team                      On lap
Kubica        BMW Sauber            (B)     1
Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes      (B)     0