Button strolls to Istanbul win

Jenson Button continued his seemingly unstoppable march to his first world championship crown with a record-equalling sixth win in seven 2009 races in the Turkish Grand Prix.The 29-year-old Briton’s latest feat put him in the most exalted company – alongside all-time greats Jim Clark and Michael Schumacher – and increased his title lead to a near-insurmountable 26 points.
Button’s path to victory was eased on the opening lap when his two nearest challengers for the victory, and closest championship rivals, suffered race-defining setbacks.First his team-mate Rubens Barrichello faltered off the startline and tumbled down the order, and then pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel blew his chances of maximising his lighter fuel load by running wide going onto the back straight.Vettel’s error gifted Button the lead and from there the points leader pulled away serenely – his only mild irritation coming in the middle phase of the race as Vettel moved onto a three-stop strategy and caught his two-stopping Brawn.
But unlike Lewis Hamilton managed here last year, the Red Bull driver couldn’t find a way past the race leader and the strategy switch only served to drop him to a disgruntled third behind team-mate Mark Webber in the final shake-up.
Vettel and Button got away from the front row in formation, but Barrichello bogged down with a clutch problem and was instantly swamped by the pack.More drama soon followed when Vettel got out of shape in the turn 9/10 chicane and ran wide across the grass on the exit.
Button didn’t need a second invitation, and in a flash the white Brawn was through into the lead.It proved to be the race’s turning point.
Button quickly made good his escape, pulling out a 1.4s cushion by the end of the second lap and extending it steadily to 5.6s by lap 14 as the first round of pit stops approached.Vettel’s prospects of making a race of it from here looked slim, as the Red Bull had two laps less fuel on board than the Brawn and the tactical cards seemed to be stacked in the latter’s favour.
In an apparent bid to tear up that unfolding script, Red Bull decided to try something different and switch Vettel to a three-stop strategy.The German’s service therefore took just 6.5 seconds, but still he found himself more than three seconds behind Button after the Briton had stopped on lap 17 and taken on his scheduled fuel load.
He quickly whittled away Button’s advantage and closed onto his gearbox by lap 24, but let slip a half-chance to pass – when Button missed the apex of the final corner – and thereafter was unable to break through the wall of turbulent air thrown up by the leading car.By lap 29 Vettel was back into the pits, and surprisingly his crew left him on a three-stop strategy rather than switching him back to a two-stopper to cover the challenge from third-placed team-mate Webber.
Any threat Button faced from either Red Bull had well and truly receded, and his task was simply to maintain his concentration and reel off the remaining laps to yet another copybook victory.The main focus of interest now switched to the intra-team battle for second places between the Red Bull team-mates.
In his third stint Vettel was unable to reproduce the pace he had shown while chasing down Button earlier, giving Webber the upper hand as the race drew towards a close.Vettel emerged from his final stop well behind the sister RB5, but – frustrated by the afternoon’s events – was in no mood to settle for third without a fight.
Lapping quickly on the soft tyres, he caught Webber quickly and closed to within striking distance before the team called off the duel and instructed both drivers to turn down their engines.“Mark is faster, save your car,” was the somewhat provocative edict that came over Vettel’s pit-to-car radio – a statement not obviously borne out by the evidence of the preceding few laps.
Vettel’s uncharacteristically downbeat demeanour in parc ferme and on the podium suggested he was far from satisfied by the disappointing return from a race that had promised so much.The 21-year-old had put paid to his victory chances with his self-confessed error on the opening lap, but in truth the Red Bull wasn’t fast enough to win anyway.
As Button confidently stated afterwards, Brawn had once again shown a clear pair of heels to the opposition and appears, if anything, to have increased its car advantage – a daunting thought for the other nine teams.A largely processional race was enlivened periodically by a few scraps further down the field but, as far as the points-paying positions were concerned, it was all a bit flat.
Jarno Trulli and Nico Rosberg waged a long duel for fourth place that was decided by pit strategy, the Toyota driver dropping behind his Williams rival due to an earlier first stop but turning the tables the next time they were serviced.
Trulli’s performance confirmed Toyota’s return to form after its nightmare Monaco weekend, while fifth for Rosberg was his and Williams’s best result of the season so far.
Team-mate Kazuki Nakajima was unlucky not to score as well, losing a lot of time with a problem at his final pit stop and dropping to an eventual 12th.Ferrari had a surprisingly mediocre race after making so much progress in recent weeks.Felipe Massa, who virtually had the title deeds to Istanbul Park after three successive wins there, could only manage a low-key sixth place on this occasion.Team-mate Kimi Raikkonen fell from sixth to ninth on the opening lap, damaged his front wing in contact with Fernando Alonso’s Renault, and finished outside the points in ninth.
Robert Kubica finally got his name onto the 2009 points board with a solid seventh for BMW Sauber, while Timo Glock used a long first stint to good effect to haul himself from 13th on the grid to eighth for Toyota.Barrichello's race went from bad to worse as he tangled with several other cars, his recovery drive fizzled out amid heavy traffic and he ultimately registered Brawn's first retirement of the season.
Turkish Grand Prix result - 58 laps


1. BUTTON Brawn
2. WEBBER Red Bull +6.7s
3. VETTEL Red Bull +7.4s
4. TRULLI Toyota +27.8s
5. ROSBERG Williams +31.5s
6. MASSA Ferrari +39.9s
7. KUBICA BMW +46.2s
8. GLOCK Toyota +46.9s
9. RAIKKONEN Ferrari +50.2s
10. ALONSO Renault +62.4s
11. HEIDFELD BMW +64.3s
12. NAKAJIMA Williams +66.3s
13. HAMILTON McLaren +80.4s
14. KOVALAINEN McLaren +1 lap
15. BUEMI Toro Rosso +1 lap
16. PIQUET Renault +1 lap
17. SUTIL Force India +1 lap
18. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso +1 lap
R. BARRICHELLO Brawn +11 laps
R. FISICHELLA Force India +54 laps


Fastest lap: BUTTON 1m27.579s (lap 40)