2009 AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX MELBOURNE

RACE

Jenson Button led the Brawn GP team to victory in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix today, achieving his second Grand Prix win and capping a stunning debut race weekend for the British-based team. Team-mate Rubens Barrichello brought his BGP 001 car home in second position to achieve the first one-two finish for a new team since Mercedes-Benz in 1954. The two Brawn-Mercedes cars started from the front row of the grid after dominating Saturday’s qualifying session. Jenson had a good start, maintaining his advantage into the first corner and establishing a strong lead over the field. From there he controlled the race, responding well to the first safety car period and recovering from a slow second stop which reduced his lead over Vettel to 1.5 seconds, before taking the chequered flag for a well-deserved victory at the end of the 58-lap race Rubens had a somewhat more dramatic race with a difficult start off the line dropping him a few places and he subsequently sustained damage to his front wing and nose in a first corner collision. He battled with the damage for the first stint, survived a further collision with Raikkonen, and passed Rosberg on track to be up to fourth by lap 53. Rubens took his podium finish when an incident between Vettel and Kubica put both cars out of the race with three laps to go promoting Rubens to second and bringing out the safety car which brought the field home.

RESULTS

Drivers Car No. Chassis No. Race Result / Fastest Lap Jenson Button 22 BGP 001-02 P1 01:28.020 Rubens Barrichello 23 BGP 001-01 P2 01:29.066 Weather Warm and sunny Temperatures Air: 20-22°C Track: 23-31°C

JENSON BUTTON

“What an amazing day! This is just a fairytale ending to the first race of our career together at Brawn GP. It may have looked like an easy victory but it really wasn’t easy at all out there today but we brought the car home and that’s all that matters. This win is for me, my family and my team. It’s been a traumatic few months and I want to say a massive thank you to them all for being so strong and never losing belief. This weekend we have achieved everything that we deserve for all of our hard work over the past few months. And what’s so exciting is that there is so much more to come from myself and from this team. I can’t wait to get to Malaysia!”

RUBENS BARRICHELLO

“Well you could say that I had an eventful afternoon! I had a lot of mixed emotions during the race and honestly I am so delighted to have achieved second. It was really tough for me at the start as the anti-stall kicked in which cost me a few places off the line and then I was hit heavily from behind going into the first corner and thought my race was over. Thankfully the car survived and I was able to battle my way up to fourth and be in the position to take advantage of the accident between Vettel and Kubica. It just goes to show that you should never give up! Congratulations to Jenson for a fantastic win today and my heartfelt thanks to the team for providing us with such a good car. This is the start of a very exciting journey for us.”

ROSS BRAWN

“We have worked incredibly hard for this victory today and to see the dedication, commitment and sheer hard work come to fruition with Jenson and Rubens bringing home a one-two finish for Brawn GP at the first race of the season is immensely rewarding. After everything that our team has been through over the past four months, this is quite simply a sensational result. It is just the beginning for us and it wasn’t a perfect race by any means so we will learn from today and continue to improve. We have to keep developing the car throughout the season if we want to challenge for further wins and the championship. I would like to express our sincere thanks to Norbert Haug and Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines who have been so supportive over the past few months and have worked closely with the team to ensure we were in a position to go racing this year. Thanks also to Virgin, Henri Lloyd and all our team partners for having the vision to see what the team could do before today and wanting to be a part of it. It’s difficult to put into words what this win means to our team but I’m sure that I speak for every single one of them, here at the track and back at the factory in Brackley, when I say it has been a wonderful weekend.”

2009 AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX MELBOURNE 28 MARCH

QUALIFYING

The Brawn GP team locked out the front row of the grid today in qualifying for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. On the day in which the team announced its new partnership with Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, Jenson Button put the BGP 001 car on pole at the end of a closely-fought qualifying hour. Team-mate Rubens Barrichello will start alongside Jenson on the front row of the grid for tomorrow’s 58-lap race.

The BGP 001 cars ran at the front of the field throughout qualifying with the team’s two drivers vying for position at the top of the timesheets. Rubens took the honours in Q1 and Q2, posting the fastest lap of qualifying in the second session. In the pole position shoot-out, both drivers completed two runs with Jenson taking pole in the dying seconds of the session.

RESULTS

Drivers Car No. Chassis No. Free Practice Qualifying 1 Qualifying 2 Qualifying 3 Jenson Button 22 BGP 001-02 P3 P2 01:25.211 P2 01:24.855 P1 01:26.202 Rubens Barrichello 23 BGP 001-01 P6 P1 01:25.006 P1 01:24.783 P2 01:26.505

Weather Warm and sunny Temperatures Air: 24-25°C Track: 29-33°C

JENSON BUTTON

“To put the car on pole at our debut race is a fantastic achievement and I have to give so much credit to Ross, Nick and everyone at the factory in Brackley. The last four months have been incredibly tough for the team and to go from a situation where you don’t even know if you are going to be racing to achieving pole at the first race of the season is just incredible. Tomorrow is obviously the most important day of the weekend and there is a lot of work to be achieved to come away with a successful result however we have to remember where we have been and really enjoy this moment.”

RUBENS BARRICHELLO

“It has been a great day and I want to congratulate the team for an outstanding job. I was hoping that I could put the car on pole and it was looking good in the first two sessions but in Q3 I developed some understeer in the car which comprised my final runs. However the first row for both cars is a real credit to the team and gives us a great chance in the race tomorrow. We have a really good car which everyone deserves credit for and I am just so happy to be racing at the front again.”

ROSS BRAWN

“Watching our two cars top the timesheets throughout qualifying capped an excellent day for the team which began with the announcement of our new partnership with Virgin this afternoon. The track conditions were more favourable than we experienced yesterday and we found that the tyres worked in a more conventional way. In addition, the changes that we had made following yesterday’s practice sessions proved positive and both drivers had a well-balanced car which allowed them to concentrate on maximising the lap times. Whilst this is a great achievement and gives both drivers an excellent opportunity in the race tomorrow, the job is only half done and our full focus is now on getting the best result possible in the race. I would like to pay credit to Jenson, Rubens and the whole team, both here and at our factory, for their achievement today and to Mercedes-Benz for their invaluable support over the past few months.”

Source: brawngp.com

2009 Formula 1 Rule Cha Cha Changes

TIRES - Slick tires will return for the first time since they were banned for the 1998 season. Bridgestone will continue to be the sole supplier of tires, and drivers will still have to use both compounds of tire during a race. These compounds are differentiated by a green marking around the sides of the tires, rather than a white marking in a groove as used in 2008. Further, wet tires were renamed as "intermediate" and extreme-weather tires were renamed "wet".

AERO - The aerodynamic regulations have been radically altered for the 2009 season. Front wings will be lower and wider, while rear wings will be much higher and narrower. This makes the 2009 cars strikingly different in appearance from those of previous seasons, and several drivers have expressed concerns that the larger front wings could trigger more accidents; especially at the start of Grands Prix when the cars are racing close to each other. As well as the changes in the dimensions of the wings, bodywork will be much more regulated with many of the additional components seen in previous seasons effectively outlawed (including barge boards, winglets, turning vanes, chimneys, Viking horns and dumbo ears), the diffuser at the rear of the car has been moved back and upwards. Many other minor chassis components have also been standardized. The aim of the new aerodynamic regulations, as well as the reintroduction of slick tires, is to decrease reliance on aerodynamic down force and increase mechanical grip with the aim of making wheel-to-wheel racing easier. For the first time, cars will be allowed to use driver adjustable bodywork, in the form of adjustable flaps in the front wing. The flaps can be adjusted by up to six degrees, limited to only two adjustments per lap. 

KERS - "Kinetic Energy Recovery System". This is a regenerative braking device designed to recover some of the vehicle's kinetic energy, which is normally dissipated as heat during braking. The recovered energy can be stored electrically, in a battery or super capacitor, or mechanically, in a flywheel, for use as a source of additional accelerative power at the driver's discretion by way of a "boost button" on the steering wheel. The regulations limit the additional power to around 82 hp for six seconds a lap. The regulations do not make this compulsory, and due to concerns about both limited performance gains and safety implications many teams are believed to be unlikely to use the new KERS systems for at least the start of the 2009 season.

TESTING BAN - While it was reported in 2008 that the FIA were planning on introducing a budget cap to limit the amount of spending by Formula One teams, the amount was not agreed upon and the budget cap idea was dropped. Instead, costs will be brought down by an almost total ban on in-season testing, a forced reduction in wind tunnel usage, the sharing of more data during race weekends.  

ENGINE  - Each driver will be limited to a maximum of 8 engines throughout the season, in addition to four engines for practice/testing purposes. To aid improvements in reliability, the engines will be detuned from 19,000RPM to 18,000RPM

SAFETY CAR - The rule stating that the pit lane is closed during a Safety Car period will be scrapped in 2009. The rule was introduced in 2007 to avoid people rushing back to the pits to refuel, possibly speeding through a danger zone, but software has been successfully developed to solve this problem.