Reports

Chinese GP: Vettel Claims Red Bull's Debut Win

Sunday 19th April 2009

Sebastian Vettel claimed Red Bull's first-ever grand prix win at Shanghai on Sunday with the team scoring a dominant 1-2, with Mark Webber coming home second for the Milton Keynes-based team.

The two Brawns of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello came home in third and fourth place but never looked a serious threat, while Lewis Hamilton had to cede to team-mate Heikki Kovalainen after several off-track excursions in a race that started under a Safety Car.

It was another disaster for the Ferrari, BMW and Renault teams, with Massa stopping while in P3, and Robert Kubica ramming his car into the back of Jarno Trulli's Toyota on Lap 18.

Race Report
With steady rain at the start of the Chinese GP, Race Director Charlie Whiting decided to start it under the Safety Car and avoid any Turn 1 carnage - for the record, the air temperature was at 20C while the track was lower at 19C.

The race officialy got underway as Berndt Maylander pulled away in the Mercedes Safety Car and Sebastien Vettel slotted in behind him followed by the rest of the field minus Robert Kubica and Timo Glock who elected to fill their cars up and start from the pitlane (having nothing to lose from their original grid slots at the back).

The Safety Car start was a disaster for Fernando Alonso who only had about nine laps of fuel on board - a bit of grandstanding from the Renault team to boost morale(?). The Safety Car start meant that the field would hardly spread in the opening laps and so when he made his pit-stop, he would rejoin near the back.

The Red Bulls had hardly much more with Vettel and Webber estimated with 11 and 12 laps, the two Brawns had 17 and 18 laps, while Raikkonen and Hamilton had 21 and 22 laps of fuel. In fact fuel adjusted, the two Brawns looked the strongest runners of all with Rubens Barrichello taking the fuel-adjusted pole.

Back to the track action and the parade of cars weaved around trying to keep heat in the tyres and whatever heat they could find for the brakes. This was interspersed by team radio traffic. All the cars with low amounts of fuel who wanted the Safety Car to come in early gave helpful suggestions about how drivable the track was. "We had worse in the past," commented Vettel

Jenson Button on the other hand said that his car was aquaplaning on the main straight and that the visibility was terrible. The biggest comedy moment came when the Renault team asked Fernando Alonso pointedly (knowing that Whiting would be listening in Race Control) "Do you feel that it's safe for the Safety Car to come in?" "Yes."

McLaren's radar revealed that it would be raining for at least the next 30 minutes.

On Lap 7, before the Safety Car came in, Alonso came back for more fuel and rejoined in last place. The Safety Car duly mocked him by coming in a lap later and we were off racing, not weaving and warming.

Lewis Hamilton immediately mounted a charge and passed the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen on Lap 9 for P6, found a fantastically wide line to get past Jarno Trulli for P5 and then threw it all away by spinning. The Mclaren driver would spend the rest of the afternoon proving that he was not the Regenmeister of Silverstone 08.

Someone who has been very tentative in the wet in the past is Felipe Massa, and after Sebsatien Buemi duelled it out with Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari, Massa came through too. So the order on Lap 13 was 1.Vettel, 2.Webber, 3.Button, 4.Barrichello, 5.Trulli, 6.Buemi, 7.Massa, 8.Raikkonen, 9.Kovalainen, 10.Hamilton. Fernando Alonso at the back of the field was making no progress at all and was in P.17.

On Lap 14 Timo Glock earned himself what under Melbourne circumstances would be a 10-place grid penalty, by completely misjudging his braking and piling into Nick Heidfeld's car. The fact that this and several other avoidable accidents in the race were not even investigated (let alone cleared) was curious in the extreme, though the worst example was yet to come.

The two Red Bulls had been able to make their fuel go further after the period behind the Safty Car and came in for their pit-stops at the end of Laps 14 and 15. This made the race order on Lap 16: 1.Button, ten seconds ahead of... 2.Barrichello, five seconds ahead of 3.Vettel 4.Buemi, 5.Massa, 6.Webber, 7.Raikkonen, 8. Hamilton, 9.Kovalainen.

On Lap 18 Jarno Trulli, whose Toyota had been going steadily backwards in the wet conditions was hit up the back by Robert Kubica's BMW. It was a high speed impact with Kubica totally misjudging Trulli's pace - it was almost a re-run of Canada 2007 except the BMW hit the Toyota squarely from behind and almost drove over the top of it before sliding back down.

Trulli's race was finished, though his car continued down the road, while amazingly, the BMW of Kubica seemed to suffer little more than a destroyed front nose. With all the debris on the track the Safety Car was sent out to allow marshals to collect all the carbon fibre pieces of smashed turning vanes. Astonishingly, the stewards didn't want to investigate this either.

Both Brawns headed back to the pits for their first pit-stops - under the new Safety Car rules, there is a maximum sector time that drivers must comply with. Sebastien Buemi seemed to be ignoring this when he approached third placed man Sebastian Vettel's car at speed, clipping his rear tyre with his front wing.

When the Brawns re-emerged the order behind the Safety Car was then: Vettel, Button, Massa (not stopped), Webber, Raikkonen (not stopped), Hamilton (not stopped), Barrichello, Kovalainen (not stopped).

Felipe Massa's strong drive in the wet then came to an abrupt end after Turn 13 as his Ferrari F60 stuttered to a halt and the field queued up behind him streamed past him.

On Lap 23 we were GO again and Vettel immediately opened up a 4.3 second gap to Jenson Button and set off down the road. Mark Webber shadowed the Brawn car a few seconds back. Kovalainen overtook the much heavier Barrichello and Hamilton overtook Raikkonen for the third time of the afternoon.

Nelson Piquet Junior had his usual spin on Lap 28, though later in the race than some would have expected. The Renault snapped off the road at Turn 5 and an impact with the polystyrene braking marker deranged his front wing requiring a pit-stop.

On Lap 29 Jenson Button went straight on allowing Mark Webber to take P2 without a fight. Two laps later and the Aussie returned the favour by running wide at the final corner allowing Button back. This seemed to galvanise the Red Bull driver because by Turn 7 of the next lap he'd made an impressive pass on the outside of the turn to take back P2.

What's more, he and Sebastian Vettel set about trading fastest laps of the race to open up a decisive advantage. Vettel at this stage was 18 seconds in front and unlikely to lose that edge unless we had another Safety Car.

On Lap 33 Webber put in the FL with a 1:54.254, then a lap later 1:54.197, followed by Vettel's 1:53.864 on Lap 35 and 1:53.435 on Lap 36 which Webber reduced to 1:53.382. At the same time Jenson Button's personal best of the race so far was only a 1:55.280 and so the Red Bull's were able to pull away.

Though Vettel and Webber were due to pit before the Brawns, they would regain their places as the strategy wound out. The only area of doubt (apart from another SC) was whether the track might dry out enough to warrant Bridegstone Inters - everyone up until Nico Rosberg on lap 41 had taken full wets.

The Williams driver made no progress on his tyres and so everyone took full wets to the finish. On Lap 44 the order was: 1.Vettel, 15 seconds ahead of... 2.Webber, 3.Button, 4.Buemi (still to stop), 5.Barrichello, 6.Hamilton, 7.Kovalainen, 8.Sutil, 9.Heidfeld, 10.Glock.

On Lap 45 Nelson Piquet matched Robert Kubica by taking his third nose of the day after losing his car under braking and dinking the barrier. At the same time Lewis Hamilton was having yet another off-track excursion handing his place to Heikki Kovalainen. On Lap 49 he would do it again at the final turn allowing Adrian Sutil through to P6 and the chance of three points for Force India.

Sadly it didn't last long. Two laps later Sutil lost the car at the place Piquet had side-swiped the braking board, Turn 5, and went sailing into the barrier at a speed great enough to knock his front wheel clean off the tethers.

The race order on lap 51 was Vettel, Webber, Button, Barrichello, Kovalainen, Hamilton, Glock, Buemi, Heidfeld and Alonso. Heidfeld would slip back before the flag promoting Alonso to P9 (which could potentially be a P8 if Buemi's Safety car sector times are analysed).

And so both Red Bulls made it to the line to give a decisive debut win for the Milton Keynes team, Vettel's second win and his second in the wet. Mark Webber never looked like matching his team-mate for more than a couple of laps brought the car home in one piece.

Jenson Button was a long way back in P3, presumably saving his race engine for Bahrain. The two McLarens added to the symmetry of the occasion coming in 5th and 6th, Kovalainen slower than Hamilton in the race but able to keep his car in a straight line. Kimi Raikkonen trailed home in a disconsolate P10 - with no points it is the Scuderia's worst start in 27 years.

However the main focus will be on the progress of the Red Bull team. It's clear they have the driver talent to match the progress of a superbly designed car.

FH

Results
01 S. Vettel Red Bull 1:57:43.485
02 M. Webber Red Bull + 10.970
03 J. Button Brawn GP + 44.975
04 R. Barrichello Brawn GP + 1:03.704
05 H. Kovalainen McLaren + 1:05.102
06 L. Hamilton McLaren + 1:11.866
07 T. Glock Toyota + 1:14.476
08 S. Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso + 1:16.439
09 F. Alonso Renault + 1:24.309
10 K. Räikkönen Ferrari + 1:31.750
11 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso + 1:34.156
12 N. Heidfeld BMW + 1:35.834
13 R. Kubica BMW + 1:46.853
14 G. Fisichella Force India F1 + 1 laps
15 N. Rosberg Williams + 1 laps
16 N. Piquet jr. Renault + 2 laps
Did not finish
17 A. Sutil Force India F1 + 6 laps
18 K. Nakajima Williams + 13 laps
19 F. Massa Ferrari + 35 laps
20 J. Trulli Toyota + 37 laps

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