Brawn GP bounce back with one-two at Monza

Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button took Brawn GP a significant step closer to both world championship titles at Monza on Sunday afternoon, in a race rendered dramatic by a last lap shunt for McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, as he was pushing hard in third place after Button.

As expected, it was Hamilton who led from the start, using KERS in his lightly-fuelled McLaren to sprint ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and Force €ndia’s Adrian Sutil. Barrichello and Button crucially slipped into fourth and fifth places, ahead of Heikki Kovalainen’s fuel-heavy McLaren, which an aggressive Vitantonio Liuzzi also overtook for sixth place in the second Force €ndia.

Hamilton stretched his lead after setting a series of fastest laps, until his first refuelling stop on the 15th lap. Sutil stopped on the 17th, Raikkonen the 19th, those three the only men on one-stop strategies. That left the Brawns one-two from Lap 20 until their much later pit stops, on the 28th lap for Button and the 29th for Barrichello.

That was where the race was won for the Brazilian and lost for the Englishman. Button was 2.1s adrift before his stop, 4.2s after it, and Barrichello proceeded to pull away as they set after Hamilton, Raikkonen and Sutil, who had repassed them while they refuelled. Each had another stop to make, however.

When Hamilton made his on Lap 34 and emerged behind the Brawns, the writing was on the wall, but the champion refused to give in. As Button responded they ate into Barrichello’s 5.4s lead, which dwindled steadily. Barrichello had things under full control, however, and so did Button.

Hamilton, however, did not. Going into the last lap Button was 3.3s behind Barrichello, with Hamilton a second further back. But going through the second Lesmo Hamilton lost control of his McLaren, spun and thumped the inner wall before spinning again and strewing the track with debris. Out went the safety car, as Barrichello crossed the line to score his second victory of the year and to reduce Button’s championship points advantage to 14 points, 80 to 66.

€t was an emphatic victory for Ross Brawn’s team, on a day when Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull took a mere point, and one that was gifted to them courtesy of Hamilton’s shunt. To make matters worse for Red Bull, Mark Webber had been shunted out of the race by BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica at the second chicane, on the opening lap.

Brawn thus have 146 points to Red Bull’s 105.5.

Raikkonen hung on to the final podium place, but Sutil was only four-tenths adrift at the finish as he scored his first points of the season. Liuzzi might have had a shot at the podium with his single-stop strategy, but retired after 22 laps with mechanical problems.

Fernando Alonso thus brought his Renault home fifth ahead of Kovalainen, while BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld held off Vettel for seventh.

Giancarlo Fisichella had a quiet race to ninth for Ferrari, ahead of Williams' Kazuki Nakajima who held off the Toyotas of Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock and, close to the end, triggered an incident in which Trulli nearly collected Glock after having to avoid Nakajima in the middle of the road going into the first chicane. The German chased the Japanese driver home, but the €talian fell back to 14th behind Hamilton and Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi.

Romain Grosjean was an undistinguished 15th in the second Renault ahead of Williams’ Nico Rosberg, whose chances were ruined by an early pit stop. Liuzzi was classified 17th ahead of Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari and BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica, who both retired with technical problems, and an angry Webber was 20th.

While Red Bull will bounce back, the title chase is now beginning to look more and more like an in-house Brawn duel, with Button 27 points ahead of Vettel, and Barrichello 13.

Qualifying - Hamilton pips Sutil to Monza pole

For moments it seemed that Force India were about to celebrate a consecutive pole position, following their Belgian success, after Adrian Sutil lapped Monza on Saturday afternoon in 1m 24.261s in Q3. But right at the very end Lewis Hamilton came blazing round for McLaren with 1m 24.066s to snatch the honour away.

Behind them, the KERS cars of Kimi Raikkonen and Heikki Kovalainen lined up third and fourth, the first Finn lapping in 1m 24.523s for Ferrari, the second in 1m 24.845s for McLaren.

Then came the Brawn GPs, with Rubens Barrichello acing Jenson Button, 1m 25.015s to 1m 25.030s. Seventh, with a good fuel load, was Vitantonio Liuzzi in the second Force India (1m 25.043s), ahead of Renault’s Fernando Alonso (1m 25.072s), and the Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber (1m 25.180s and 1m 25.314s).

Button had grabbed the fastest time away from Hamilton right at the end of Q2, with Barrichello, Sutil, Liuzzi, Webber, Raikkonen and Alonso in pursuit. Toyota’s Jarno Trulli was the first to fail to make it through to Q3 after a lap of 1m 23.611s, which put him 11th ahead of Renault’s Romain Grosjean (1m 23.728s), BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica (1m 23.866s), Ferrari’s Giancarlo Fisichella (1m 23.901s) and BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld (1m 24.275s). It was not a great session for BMW Sauber, with both cars stopping in Turn One with engine failures.

As Raikkonen set the pace from Hamilton, Button, Barrichello, Kovalainen, Vettel, Sutil and Liuzzi (the two Force India separated by 0.002s!), Toyota nearly lost both cars in Q1, Trulli just squeaking into Q2 as team mate Timo Glock became the first faller with 1m 24.036s to the Italian's 1m 24.014s.

The other two Toyota-engined cars also failed, Kazuki Nakajima lapping his Williams in 1m 24.074s to team mate Nico Rosberg’s 1m 24.121s as they took 17th and 18th. And the two Toro Rossos were at the back, in stark contrast to last year. Sebastien Buemi lapped his in 1m 24.220s to Jaime Alguersuari’s 1m 24.951s. The latter's 20th position renders a five-place penalty for a pre-session gearbox penalty largely meaningless.

Overall, the times up the front are so close that it is going to be a terrific race.

Rossi comments on 2011 Ducati rumours

MotoGP World Champion and Misano winner Valentino Rossi was asked about a potential move to Ducati in 2011 after Sunday’s race, but says he is still to decide on his future.

Speculation in the press linking Italian national hero Valentino Rossi with a move to Italian factory team Ducati resulted in the World Champion inevitably being asked about the subject following yet another victory in Italy, but the MotoGP title holder insists the rumours are just paper talk at present.

The 30 year-old rider took another step closer to what would be a fourth premier class title with his current Fiat Yamaha team and a seventh premier class crown in total on Sunday, and when asked about the 2011 Ducati rumours he replied, “I haven’t decided yet about my future, I will decide in the next year. I have a contract signed already with Yamaha (for 2010). For sure it is a great dream for everybody, to see Valentino with Ducati. We will see, I don’t know.”

Commenting on the superb atmosphere at Misano, which is situated close to his hometown of Tavullia, Rossi enthused, “It is fantastic. This year I really feel like this is my home Grand Prix. Before it always felt more like Mugello was home, but here with all this crowd it is brilliant. It is great for MotoGP to have so many fans and to see everyone with their 46 flags was amazing.”

On whether he had expected a harder battle with his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo during the race he stated, “Jorge is always strong but we saw in the practice that we had a little bit of an advantage, so we were able to go a bit faster than him.”

Rossi: ‘It was a perfect weekend’

Valentino Rossi will make the short drive home to Tavullia from Misano with a 30 point advantage in the title race ahead of a three week break, with four rounds to go.

A fantastic performance this weekend at the Gran Premio Cinzano di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini from standings leader and reigning World Champion Valentino Rossi allowed him to put the disappointment of Indianapolis firmly behind him in the Italian sunshine.

The ideal response from Rossi to his Indy DNF was a dominant display of his competitiveness and talent over the three days of the GP, climaxing in a solid race victory in front of his home fans, to wedge a 30 point gap between himself and runner-up Jorge Lorenzo.

Afterwards a delighted Rossi stated, “I am so happy because this victory is more important than normal, coming after a bad mistake in Indianapolis just seven days ago and especially because my team and I did a great job, from Friday afternoon. It was a perfect weekend, we were always very fast in all the practices and we are always proud of all the fans here in Misano. Thanks to them for all their support.”

Describing how the race had worked out from his perspective, Rossi also commented, “I hoped to make a better start and get to the front but Dani (Pedrosa) and Toni (Elías) overtook me on the first corner and then Jorge at the end of the first lap, so I was fourth and in a little bit of trouble. I had a full fuel load and wasn’t 100% confident.”

“I decided to find my rhythm and get the right temperature into the tyres, then I started to push and it was a great race. It was a great battle with Toni, Jorge and Dani. When I got in front I couldn’t see everything behind me but I saw Jorge overtake Dani. I had three or four corners where I was very fast so I tried to use that advantage to the maximum.”