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Brawn return to form

Not the greatest motor race, the Bahrain Grand Prix, but one that was more interesting in terms of strategy. With two Toyotas on the front row we had something new to start with, but the question was that of whether the Brawns could recover some of their seemingly missing pace.

The start did not go pole sitter Jarno Trulli’s way for he found himself behind his young team mate, Timo Glock, as the German made the better getaway. Behind the KERS cars showed their advantage, with Lewis Hamilton positively storming off the line and taking on Jenson Button in the Brawn, the McLaren coming off second best with Sebastian Vettel back in fifth.

The two red and white cars duly streaked away, with Trulli holding on to Glock despite the youngsters lighter fuel load, and when Glock pitted at the end of lap ten we expected the Italian to have a couple of laps in hand. As it happens it was the next lap when the likeable Italian came in, but he emerged – somehow – ahead of his team mate by a good few seconds.

Two crucial things had now happened that, as it seems, would shape the race: the first was Button being able to hold off Hamilton – he was only a few seconds behind the Toyotas when they pitted – on the first lap, and the second was Toyotas decision to put both cars on the prime medium tyre. The latter would prove to be a mistake, and the undoing of Trulli and Glock's chances.

In fact, Glock’s pace dropped off considerably in the middle stint, and the remaining challengers all opted at this point to put the super soft tyre, clearly the faster one, on the cars. The Toyota duo found themselves, therefore, hampered and left Button out front to romp away.

The Englishman was helped by Trulli managing to come out in front of Vettel and Hamilton, and his pace created the infamous Trulli train that is often spoken of. One feels that, had they kept to the same tyre choice as the Brawn and Red Bull, they would have been able to take the fight.
Vettel had the advantage at the second stops and came out directly in front of Trulli, who could do nothing for the remainder of the race: so much for increased overtaking opportunities. A third win for Button and Brawn, and another fine result for Vettel. Trulli will be disappointed with third.

Behind there was little to talk about barf a few neat scraps in the early stages as people sorted themselves out; both BMW’s suffered damage early on and could do no better than bring up the rear with Kubica 18th and Heidfeld 19th, both miserably lapped, and the only non-finisher – remarkably – was Kazuki Nakajima who pulled out late in the Williams.

The remaining points went to a dogged Hamilton who gave it everything he could for a well deserved fourth, to Rubens Barrichello who ran a three stop strategy to fifth, plus Kimi Raikkonen who netted the first Ferrari points of the season, Timo Glock in seventh and a largely unnoticed Fernando Alonso who came home eighth for Renault some 52 seconds behind.

Felipe Massa suffered a KERS malfunction early on and a word is due for Mark Webber, who did his usual excellent job to come from the back to 11th position – a great achievement in a race of 19 finishers.

Brawn back on top, and with improvements all round for Spain, we can only look forward with interest.

Written: Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:51:44