Red Bull desperately needed a victory to get back into the world championship chase, and Sebastian Vettel delivered it in fine style in a dry Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday. And to make things even better, Mark Webber brought the sister car home second.
Jenson Button moved within six points of the world championship lead on Sunday with a superbly judged victory for McLaren in a dramatic Australian Grand Prix that firmly gave the lie to suggestions that Formula One racing is boring.
Fernando Alonso drove a superbly judged race to emulate Nigel Mansell and Kimi Raikkonen, as he sped to victory on his debut for Ferrari in Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix. Alonso chased Sebastian Vettel’s fleet Red Bull fruitlessly in the early stages, when both were running the super-soft Bridgestone tyres, but had an advantage after they had respectively switched to the harder compound on Laps 17 and 16.
Completely insignificant in terms of championship points, the 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix concludes the F1 season. Once a brake problem slowed McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel had no competition in Sunday evening’s inaugural day/night race. A brilliant win cemented his second place in the drivers’ world championship behind Brawn GP’s Jenson Button, who enlivened the end of the race with a superb challenge to the second-placed Red Bull of Mark Webber in the closing stages.
Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel brought his world championship hopes alive again with a superb victory in Japan on Sunday afternoon, winning as he pleased and leading Jarno Trulli’s Toyota home by 4.8 seconds despite a late safety car intervention. Lewis Hamilton was third for McLaren, another 1.5 seconds adrift, after losing out to Trulli in the second pit stops.
Lewis Hamilton won the nighttime 2009 Singapore F1 Grand Prix on Sunday evening, driving a perfect race for McLaren to deliver a richly deserved triumph.
Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button took Brawn GP a significant step closer to both world championship titles at the 2009 Italian F1 Grand Prix in Monza on Sunday afternoon, in a race rendered dramatic by a last lap shunt for McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, as he was pushing hard in third place after Button.
In what has to be the most random podium finishes of the season, Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen became the sixth different victor in six races, and his first for 2009, with a closely-raced success in Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix, in which his KERS system played a crucial role in the opening stages. Interestingly, perennial loser Force India came in second, after the team’s Giancarlo Fisichella took pole in qualifying.
Rubens Barrichello finally has a win for Brawn GP, coming in first at the 2009 European F1 Grand Prix in Valencia with a performance that brought him home just over two seconds ahead of McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, whose pit-crew cost him the win.
Though overshadowed by Felipe Massa’s serious freak accident in qualifying that almost saw him killed by flying debris, the 2009 Hungarian F1 Grand Prix went ahead as scheduled. Lewis Hamilton brought McLaren their first victory of the season after a surprise result in Hungary on Sunday afternoon, his dominant success also marking Martin Whitmarsh’s first as team principal and the first for a KERS-equipped car. Kimi Raikkonen was second for Ferrari, containing a challenge from Mark Webber’s Red Bull.