Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Brawn–Mercedes driver Rubens Barrichello won the FIA Formula One 2009 Gran Premio Santander d’Italia at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Italy. His team-mate Jenson Button came second.

The Brazilian led the race after the McLaren team carried out a second pit-stop for Lewis Hamilton, who had led from pole position. The last spot on the podium was filled by Kimi Räikkönen in a Ferrari after Hamilton crashed dramatically on the last lap chasing Button too hard.

Brawn executed a one pit-stop strategy that allowed them to save time they would lose otherwise by competing with the KERS-equipped cars in front of them on the grid.

Once again the race gave a good result for the Force India team as Adrian Sutil chased Räikkönen. Starting from second place on the grid, Sutil was quickly passed by the KERS-equipped Räikkönen’s car in the first corner as in the previous race he overtook the pole-sitter Giancarlo Fisichella, who is now racing for Ferrari.

The other Force India driver, Vitantonio Liuzzi, surprised the spectators by qualifying 7th on Saturday, but he retired on lap 22 when his transmission broke.

Fernando Alonso pushed hard throughout the race to finish fifth and score 4 more points for Renault, ahead of the McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen.

Nick Heidfeld managed to get two points for BMW Sauber after starting from the back of the grid as far as 15th. Championship third contender Sebastian Vettel today closed the starting grid with one point for Red Bull Racing, while Mark Webber was out of the race after pushed by Robert Kubica in his car rear.

Italian Fisichella was very emotional after he borrowed Felipe Massa‘s vacant place from Luca Badoer by joining the Italian team. He finished 9th.

Jenson Button strengthen his lead in the Championship with 80 points total. His team-mate is 2 points closer to him after this race with 66 points. Vettel is 12 points behind Barrichello and Webber 14.5 points with Räikkönen only half the points of Button. The lead constructor is still the Brawn team with 146. Red Bull 40.5 points behind, others farther behind.