Jenson Button tightened his vice-like grip on the 2009 world championship with a dominant first Monaco Grand Prix victory on Sunday, leading team-mate Rubens Barrichello home in another Brawn 1-2.
In winning five of the season's first six races the 29-year-old matched the records of Jackie Stewart (in 1969), Nigel Mansell (in 1992) and Michael Schumacher (in 2002 and 2004) – a doubly remarkable feat given the Brawn team’s troubled winter.
Button was shadowed by Barrichello in the early laps but snuffed out the Brazilian’s challenge through superior management of the super-soft tyres as the rubber dropped off dramatically for several drivers in the first stint.As Barrichello fell back on the worn rubber, Button pulled out a big cushion and thereafter controlled the race expertly from the front to increase his championship lead over the Brazilian to 16 points.
Ferrari enjoyed by far its best race of 2009 so far, with Kimi Raikkonen taking third and Felipe Massa chasing him across the finish line in fourth.
Red Bull's Mark Webber finished just behind Massa after making good use of a long opening stint to leapfrog the Williams of Nico Rosberg, although the team will no doubt be disappointed with its weekend especially after Sebastian Vettel crashed out early on.Brawn's third 1-2 result of the season was virtually sealed at the start.
Both of its drivers made inch-perfect getaways, Button easily converting pole into the lead and Barrichello, for the second successive race, hooking things up brilliantly at the lights and outdragging Raikkonen down to Ste Devote.
Otherwise, while the usual jockeying took place on the short run down to the first corner, the grid order remained relatively stable and all 20 cars expertly navigated their way through the tight right-hander and up the hill.This wasn’t exactly the scenario Lewis Hamilton had been eyeing to make big progress from the back of the grid, the Briton and his McLaren team having decided to keep an aggressive fuel strategy rather than brim his MP4-24 up with fuel and play the often beneficial long Monaco waiting game.
While the current world champion making no progress from 19th (Timo Glock perhaps more wisely having opted to start from the pit lane), the man who currently looks most likely to succeed him, Button set about opening a first stint lead.With both Brawns starting on the grippier super-soft tyres, they pulled steadily away from Raikkonen who had started on the slower, but more durable, harder compound.
Barrichello initially kept his championship leading team-mate firmly in sight, meaning Button’s lead was just 1.7s after six laps.However, the Brazilian was soon to suffer the same fate that was quickly developing on fourth-placed man Vettel’s similarly super-soft tyred Red Bull.
Despite starting with the lightest fuel load of any of the top 10 runners, the German’s rear tyres quickly went off and he dropped over 10 seconds off the front three.His struggles became so severe that eight cars stacked up behind him as he toured around the twisty streets up to 3s off the pace, with Massa and Rosberg heading an increasingly frustrated queue of drivers.
Having made one failed move on Vettel at the harbourside chicane on the previous lap, Massa tried again on lap seven but the RBR driver positioned his car perfectly under braking and the Ferrari overshot the braking zone and straight-lined the corner.Knowing he had to give the position back to Vettel, Massa slowed on the short straight towards Tabac – but misjudged the speed and only succeed in allowing Rosberg to muscle through too.
However, both Rosberg and Massa would finally be released from behind the increasingly slow Red Bull just two laps later when Vettel’s rear tyres totally gave up the ghost and he lost all grip.
After being powerless to prevent his two rivals and team-mate Mark Webber through, he headed for the sanctuary of the pit lane to take on the harder tyres. Yet Vettel’s increasingly miserable afternoon ended soon afterwards when he slammed into the tyre barrier at Ste Devote. While all this was going on, Barrichello was now experiencing the same problems and started to fall behind Button at an increasingly fast rate of knots – allowing Raikkonen to close onto his gearbox.
Logical wisdom dictated that Button should be suffering the same fate given as he was on the same tyres yet the Briton was in total control of the situation and continued to lap some 1.5s faster than Barrichello.
Raikkonen, now climbing all over the back of the second-placed Brawn, was the first of the leading runners to stop on lap 14 to take on another set of harder tyres.Brawn then covered this on the very next lap by bringing Barrichello’s fuel stop forwards so he could finally switch to the same tyres as Raikkonen and not lose crucial track position.
Button then followed a lap later on lap 16 having opened up a 15s advantage over Barrichello, rejoining the track behind Rosberg and just ahead of Massa who had been homing in on the Barrichello/Raikkonen squabble after finally disposing of Vettel.Indeed the Williams and Ferrari had been lapping around a second faster than Button prior to the Briton’s stop, with the pair now the quickest on the circuit.However, while Rosberg was initially the man banging in the benchmark times, he would lose fourth to his Ferrari rival as a result of taking on more fuel at his lap 17 stop (in a bid to minimise the time spent on the super-softs in the final stint) and Massa staying out two laps longer.
So with the front runners first of two stops for the day out of the way, the long middle phase of the race settled into a more predictable pattern – although there were several intriguing cat and mouse games to keep drivers’ full attention on the tortuous wall-lined streets.
The first was between Button and Barrichello, as although the race leader had by this stage opened up a 16s advantage his team-mate, initially at least, Barrichello attempted to try and exert some distant pressure, getting the gap down to under 14s early in the stint.
But in truth Button was simply controlling the gap and as the laps wore on, his advantage stabilised and then even steadily increased back up again as he wound up for his final stop.Barrichello was in turn keeping a healthy distance ahead of the two Ferraris now they were all on the same rubber, with Massa in particular continuing to look racy behind Raikkonen.
Indeed the Brazilian was pushing so hard that his race engineer Rob Smedley had to tell him to on two occasions over the radio that the team had received two warnings from race control about him taking too much kerb at the chicane and turn 15.Another man showing good pace was Webber, the Australian having moved up to fifth through the pit stop phase after staying out longer than both Rosberg and McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen.
With passing the Ferraris on track going to be a tall order, the Red Bull driver’s only hope of improving his position was likely to come in the final stint when all three switched to the tricky super-softs.However, with far more grip down on the track than in the early laps, the ‘option’ tyres held on for longer and all three managed to hold on for the final laps.
In the end Button cruised to a brilliant victory 7.6s ahead of Barrichello, the Brazilian picking up the fourth Monaco runners-up trophy of his career.Behind the top five, Rosberg couldn’t maintain his pace from the early laps during his long middle stint and eventually claimed a solid three points for Williams.
Fernando Alonso had a lonely drive to seventh in the Renault, the Spaniard’s car not having the pace to challenge for a higher position.The final point went to Toro Rosso’s under-pressure driver Sebastien Bourdais, the Frenchman narrowly beating Force India’s Giancarlo Fisichella after both made great progress on a one-stop strategy.
Toyota and BMW’s miserable weekends ended with the inevitable no-score, as did Hamilton’s who eventually wound up 12th.Having made up little ground early on, the Briton struggled with understeer throughout the race after damaging his front wing after tagging Nick Heidfeld’s BMW at Ste Devote early on. McLaren would have scored some points with Kovalainen, but the Finn clouted the barriers after dropping his MP4-24 on the exit of the Swimming Pool.
Monaco Grand Prix result - 78 laps
1. BUTTON Brawn
2. BARRICHELLO Brawn +7.6s
3. RAIKKONEN Ferrari +13.4s
4. MASSA Ferrari +15.1s
5. WEBBER Red Bull +15.7s
6. ROSBERG Williams +33.5s
7. ALONSO Renault +37.8s
8. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso +63.1s
9. FISICHELLA Force India +65.0s
10. GLOCK Toyota +1 lap
11. HEIDFELD BMW +1 lap
12. HAMILTON McLaren +1 lap
13. TRULLI Toyota +1 lap
14. SUTIL Force India +1 lap
15. NAKAJIMA Williams +2 laps
16. KOVALAINEN McLaren +27 laps
17. KUBICA BMW +50 laps
18. VETTEL Red Bull +63 laps
19. PIQUET Renault +68 laps
20. BUEMI Toro Rosso +68 laps
Sunday, 24 May 2009
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