Race Report
Brazilian GP
Mark Webber scored his second Formula One victory for Red Bull at Interlagos this afternoon but the bigger prize today went to Brawn GP and Jenson Button with Button taking the World Drivers title with a hard fought 5th place finish and Brawn the Constructors title. The race started in dramatic fashion with carnage on the first lap after a clash between Adrian Sutil, Jarno Trulli and Fernando Alonso with all eliminated. Alonso was an innocent party being hit by Sutil's out of control Force India after the impact with Trulli. There was more drama in the pitlane as Kovalainen left his pit box with the fuel line still attached spraying fuel over the following Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen which spectacularly ignited, engulfing the Ferrari in a ball of flame that fortunately immediately burnt itself out. The on track incident resulted in a safety car deployment after which Rubens Barrichello led away as he had done from the starting grid with Mark Webber in second place. Barrichello looked strong at the front until after his first pit stop after which he seemed to struggle, losing the lead to the hard charging Webber who held on to the flag. Barrichello struggled later in the race pitting from P3 in the closing stages with a suspected puncture. It was too late for him to recover the lost ground and he had to settle for a disappointing 8th place at what is definitely his bogey track. The ill fortune suffered by his team mate played into the hands of a hard charging Jenson Button who had made some impressive passes on Nakajima and Kobayashi, the latter who put up a big fight. Button was a solid performer throughout the race and finished 5th at the flag having done enough to take the drivers title. Robert Kubica drove a great race to take second place for BMW Sauber making up for a blunder for team mate Nick Heidfeld who ran out of fuel out on track. Another great drive by Lewis Hamilton saw him jump from 18th on the grid to score a podium place for 3rd after benefitting from a swap to a one stop strategy early on. Sebastian Vettel recovered well from his disastrous qualifying result to finish 4th with Kimi Raikkonen rounding out the top six for Ferrari. Sebastian Buemi did a great job to score 2 points for Toro Rosso in 7th with the luckless Barrichello grabbing the last point for 8th. Heikki Kovalainen and Kobayashi closed out the top ten. So Button fulfilled his dream with one race to spare as the teams move on to Abu Dhabi for the season finale.
