Sepang - Brawn GP - Race Review

Firstly I would just like to say a huge congratulations to the Team, Jenson, Rubens and Ross for another great GP and another victory for Jenson. The Sepang GP always had weather issues written all over it. Teams were reporting rain for the start of the GP and when it rains there it pours. With Jenson starting from Pole position and Rubens back in 8th (5 place grid penalty for a gearbox change) we were looking in a great position. Jenson had a bad start from the grid and lost ground to Rosberg, Trulli and Alonso who all had fantastic starts. Rubens however had a little better start and pitched the car into 6th by the 2nd corner. Rubens quickly dispatched of Kimi and started to hunt both Alonso and Jenson. Turn 13 and Jenson dispatched of Alonso who had really put himself out of sync in the race as he was running with a substantial fuel load. Alonso was really easy pickings in this part of the field due to his weight disadvantage, Rubens passed him before having to yeild as he ran wide into the last corner on lap 2. He used the slipstream down the pit straight following this corner to easily sail past Alonso into turn 1.
With Rubens released from behind the slower Renault he could lead an assault on the 3 in front, Jenson meanwhile also released from the Renaults grasp set a fastest lap and charged towards Jarno.
Rubens responded to Jenson recording the next fastest lap, trying to reel in the front 3. The next few laps are the front 4 trading fastest laps and sector times, all of which are running similar fuel strategies.
Lap 10 and Alonso can no longer keep Kimi at bay and goes to deep into a corner allowing the Finn to fly past.
Some great racing followed in the midfield with Webber, Alonso and Glock all battling for 5th position.
Lap 15 and Rosberg is the first frontrunner to make his pitstop taking on fuel and new tyres (soft tyres) This promoted the BGP's to 2nd and 3rd still to stop. Jenson at this stage started to step rather loudly on the loud pedal and reeled in Jarno at a staggering pace. Jarno peeled away to the pits another lap later at the end of lap 17. So commencing lap 18 Jenson has an open field and pushes the BGP001 to it's limits for the next 2 laps. Rubens meanwhile now in 2nd also has some clean air and is pushing hard.
Kimi decided at the end of lap 18 to pit and go to the full wet weather tyre, a gamble (although in the opposite direction) we have seen him make at Silverstone last year. The rain although spitting was not warranting the full wets.
Jenson came in at the end of lap 19 for fuel and new tyres taking another set of the soft tyres and a little less fuel than Rosberg and Trulli, Jensons pitstop timing in at 8.7 secs compared to the nearer 10 secs stops of Rosberg and Trulli. This coupled with the storming 2 laps in clean air allowed Jenson to easily clear the Williams and Toyota's of Rosberg and Trulli. The pit stop timings were something that were clearly missed in the UK commentary and I believe this was a crucial tactical decision taken by Ross and the team to get Jenson out in clear air at the front of the field. Ultimately this is what gave Jenson the win in my opinion.
Rubens came in for his pitstop at the end of the next lap and took a 9.4 sec stop, unfortunately for Rubens the slippy gearbox situation reared its ugly head as he tried to exit the pit box and lost him some valuable seconds. Had he cleared the stop cleanly he would have jumped Jarno in the pit stop instead he came out level with Jarno into turn 1 and had to yield the position and take 4th.
Lap 21 and Rubens was starting to make a charge on Jarno but the heavens started to open and put pay to any overtake being able to stick.
Jenson was the first to come in and change onto the wet weather tyres (with the exception of Kimi and Bourdais who had previously gambled and not paid off) The same lap saw everyone coming in for a change of tyres. Almost everyone going for full wets (Except for Glock).
The next few laps saw a great battle emerge between Webber and Hamilton with Lewis using all his might and KERS to keep Mark at bay all until Lewis had a problem reaching the rev limiter in 6th and Mark went passed.
In this stage of the race RBR and Glock really starting to relish the conditions and seemingly putting in some great lap times.
Rubens still pushing hard and on lap 26 he passes Jarno for 3rd, Rubens then at the end of lap 26 puts a move on Nico for 2nd place and with that Nico goes into the pits (taking intermediate tyres) and leaves Rubens in 2nd, the grid starting to turn upside down as the wet weather tyres on a dryish surface starting to fade. Glock is storming through the field even passing his team mate Jarno and taking 4th place behind Webber. Rubes unfortunately couldn't hold on in one corner due to tyre degradation and let Webber and Glock through. A great bit of racing between Mark and Timo followed where Timo overtook Mark and then we saw the side of Timo's car from Mark's perspective as they exit the last corner onto the pit straight.
Just behind this battle Rubens comes to the pit box and takes the inters and also loses out to Jarno in the pit stop. On their outlap Rubens manages to squeeze Trulli out and take back the position.
The following lap sees Jenson come into the pits for a set of inters and a tweak on the front wing and due to Timo's timely change of tyres he now takes charge of the race with Jenson slotting in 2nd. Jenson made up the 3.3 sec deficit in the following lap to take the lead from Timo once more. Timo decided to yield and went on into the pit lane to take a set of full wet weather tyres.
The rain is really lashing down now along with some lightning, and the track is starting to get quite trechorous with cars flying off all over the place. Jenson and the team make the sensible decision to jump in for Full wet weather tyres again and manages to jump both Timo and suprisingly Nick Heidfeld who's long fuel stratergy played into his hands and is now placed 3rd (But struggling on inters). Rubens follows everyone else into the pits taking the full wets option.

Lap 31 and the safety car is deployed as its just terrible out there with some corners looking more like rivers. With that the race is red flagged and everyone dispatched back to the grid slots to await a restart. This leaves Jenson in 1st, Glock 2nd and Heidfeld 3rd. The race was abandoned after the red flag due to poor weather conditions and the inability to make 75% race distance.

In this circumstance the result goes to count back by one lap and only half the championship points are given out.

1st Jenson Button 5 Points
2nd Nick Heidfeld 4 Points
3rd Timo Glock 3 Points
4th Jarno Trulli 2.5 Points
5th Rubens Barrichello 2 Points
6th Mark Webber 1.5 Points
7th Lewis Hamilton 1 Point
8th Nico Rosberg 05. Points

Something I noticed from some of the in board views of Vettel is just how much flex is in the top fence of the RBR's front wing. Questionable legality?

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Brawn GP - Sepang Race Summary

Well we all thought the weather would play a massive part in the proceedings of this race and we were not dissapointed. I have to say that I was impressed by the wheel to wheel action on display before and during the rainfall. I will add a full blown race account to this post later on but please leave any comments on this post regarding the race.

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Jenson Takes win No 2 in Sepang

Congratulations to Jenson after another sterling victory, he showed the raw pace of BGP001 as he caught and passed Trulli and Rosberg in the pit window. Rubens did very well too and took 5th place. This puts Jenson on 15 points and Rubens on 10 Points. I will add a standings board to the Blog later. I will also do a race summary as per the Melbourne one later.

"What a crazy race," said Button, who had won the Australian Grand Prix behind the safety car.

"My start was pretty bad. I don't think I'd got enough heat in the tyres and had a lot of oversteer. But I went back to fourth, got up to third, eventually got back up to the front, and I was pretty happy with that, our pace was pretty good."

"Choosing the tyres was very difficult, because normally here when it rains it pours, but it didn't to start with. We went for the full wet tyre and it destroyed itself, and then I saw Timo (Glock) flying up behind us with the inter, so we put the intermediates on."

"Just as he came by I saw his tyres were bald and it was raining out the back, so he was struggling quite a lot and had to pit."

"I got one lap in on the inter at a reasonable pace and was able to get in and put the wet tyre on and get back in front."

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Brawn GP - On the Button

Another race and another pole position for Jenson. A sterling drive by Jenson again to keep Jarno at bay. Rubens also fought well to take fourth which with his 5th place grid penalty and Vettel's 10 place penalty he will line up 8th.

1 Button Q3=1:35.058 Q2=1:33.784 Q1=1:35.181
4 Barrichello Q3=1:34.681 Q2=1:34.387 Q1=1:35.651 WILL BE DEMOTED to 8th

All in all another great day for the team, I will announce the car weights as soon as I can find them. This will give us a clearer indication of our race pace. I assume that Rubens is running more fuel.

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Brawn GP - Free Practice 3 - Sepang

1 Rosberg - 1:35.940 19
2 Webber -1:36.048
3 Massa - 1:36.089
4 Trulli - 1:36.132
5 Glock - 1:36.189
6 Vettel - 1:36.194
7 Räikkönen - 1:36.322
8 Nakajima - 1:36.325
9 Barrichello - 1:36.519
10 Button - 1:36.541
11 Kubica - 1:36.563
12 Hamilton - 1:36.657
13 Kovalainen - 1:36.742
14 Alonso - 1:37.004
15 Heidfeld - 1:37.026
16 Piquet - 1:37.032
17 Sutil - 1:37.118
18 Buemi - 1:37.282
19 Bourdais - 1:37.322
20 Fisichella - 1:37.398

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Brawn GP - Friday Press Conference - Sepang

Here is the section related to Ross Brawn:

Q. Ross, your feelings so far?

Ross BRAWN: Well, obviously Australia was, as has been said many times, a fairytale. Thinking about what the team has gone through for the past few months then to have the result we had in Melbourne was unconceivable and unbelievable. I have been through many things in Formula One. I have been lucky enough to have some very special experiences and that certainly ranks as one of the best, if not the best of my career. It was achieved with a lot of things from within the company but there are a lot of people outside the company who helped us survive.
Martin was one of them and Ron did his elder statesman part and did a very good job and I must say FOTA rallied around. We would not have survived without the help of those people. Whilst it was a wonderful it shows that even though we are going through a little bit of a difficult period with protests and things at the moment there is another side of our business which is very united and very together in trying to solve and improve Formula One.


Q. Ross, has the phone been ringing with people wanting to give you money since last weekend?

RB: It is not quite that simple but there has been a lot of interest and of course given the result we had last weekend it was perfect to develop the commercial side. If we had been at the back of the grid it would have certainly been a lot more difficult. But it is a tough market out there at the moment and we all know what the economic situation is.
But things are developing reasonably well but the key objective for us is to find partners that we can have for the next two, three or more years, not just someone to come along and have a quick splash and disappear. We will take our time to develop the right partners. With Virgin it is starting small but with a lot of potential for the future, so I think we have made as good a start as we could have dreamed of with the results we have and the car we have got. With regards to KERS it is not high on the agenda for us at the moment.
We had to make some compromises to change the engine in the car, so the car has got to be heavier now than originally intended and that makes it quite difficult to install KERS. We will have to work hard to get some weight out of the car before we can get to a position where KERS is a possibility. Like the rest of the group we will be monitoring the situation. This, I think, is one of the best tracks for KERS according to our simulations when we did it and I think you may see that KERS-equipped cars will be more to the fore here than they perhaps would be on other circuits.

Q. Someone suggested last weekend that is costs more money to have KERS. Is that right?

RB: It certainly costs money.

Q. Is it part of the deal? Is it extra?
RB: No, our engine agreement with McLaren Mercedes is purely an engine supply agreement. We have had some tentative discussions about KERS but it is a little bit early for us to engage properly on that.

Q. (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Ross, how do you see the situation here compared to Australia one week ago?

RB: It's still a little bit too early to say. We're struggling a little bit with the balance of the car today, it's not quite as nice as Australia. Despite what the perceptions are of the car it has actually very good low speed grip, it's very good on traction. It's not a track that perhaps rewards those elements quite as much and neither driver was particularly happy with the balance of the car today, so we've got to do a good job tonight to improve that, but I think we'll be near the front and fighting at the front. Whenever anyone said a car or a team were going to be dominant, don't believe it because this business is too competitive for anyone to be dominant. We're going to have to fight very, very hard to get points this weekend and hopefully get podiums.

Q. This is for Ross Brawn, can you explain for us the development plan for your car this year? Do you have enough resources to develop the car while other teams develop their cars, of course?

RB: Yes, we've been through a pretty traumatic winter and unfortunately that still continued this week because we had a lot of restructuring of the team to do. We're not a team with a budget that Honda had, so this week there has been some unfortunate restructuring. We hope we're going into next week with our new team and we can then look forward and the restructuring has been very focused on performance. It would be no good having a team with fantastic production facilities and no ideas, so the team has been structured very strongly around maintaining a good development programme, so we've tried not to impact the technical areas too much and yes, the development is on-going.
We're planning an upgrade for Barcelona or just after Barcelona. We obviously have this appeal hearing next week or the week after next and we need to see what comes out of that because that may change direction. I'm reasonably confident but you can't be one hundred percent confident. So yeah, we've got to move forward. I think these new rules, by definition, being a new set of rules, the rate of progress will be very rapid as Martin touched on. At one stage in winter testing they were quite a long way behind and now they're getting into the pack and making rapid progress, so it is an era of very rapid progress and we've got to progress as well as our competitors if we want to have a hope of winning another race this year.

Q. (Benny Casadei – Il Giornale) Ross, which is the most important thing you learned at Ferrari that you are applying leading your new team?

RB: Non mollare mai – you never give up and there were times over the winter when it was easy to think this was actually not worth it. It was very, very difficult at times. The great thing, I must say, is that the team stuck together. I've said before, I had some black days over the winter. Luckily they didn't coincide with Nick's black days or some of the other management team's black days.
As I said at the beginning, the support from McLaren and Mercedes was exceptional. They didn't know whether we were going to make it or not but they just gave us 110 percent all the time. There was no doubt from their side that they were going to give us everything we wanted. So if I took something from Ferrari and from Luca (di Montezemolo) and Jean Todt and Michael (Schumacher), it was just never give up.

The rest of the press conference can be viewed here http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/74208

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Brawn GP - Sepang/Malaysia - Weather

The weather might well be the biggest factor for this weekends race in Sepang. Brawn GP have done no wet weather testing due to the short period of testing time available to the team. Comments made by Jenson suggest that the weather could hinder the teams performance, without the testing that others have been able to do in wet conditions setting the car up could be difficult. Expect Jenson and Rubens to put in ALOT of laps throughout qualifying to get the setups right. To further compound the weather situation, light could be another major problem for visibility.

Photo courtesy of http://malaysiangp.com.my/news/formula-1-rain-rain-go-away

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