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Brawn set for Sepang glory

Author: Rose Young
Date: 04/04/2009

The Brawn team retain their betting favourites tag for the second race of the 2009 Formula One season at Sepang in Malaysia.

Their shock performances in testing leading up to the opening race of the season in Australia were, as many predicted, able to be replicated in race conditions as Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello secured a Brawn one-two.

After Button pulled 3.9 seconds ahead of Sebastian Vettel, starting third on the grid, after the first lap he wasn't pushed by anyone except his team-mate, eventually beating the Brazilian by 0.8 seconds, while easing 2.9 seconds ahead of third-placed Lewis Hamilton.

The question yet to be answered is how Button, whose victory was only his second in F1, will handle the supreme Brawn car in a more competitive situation. The problem for his rivals is how to create a situation that could be described as competitive.

In qualifying it is hard to look beyond the Brawn: Button drove 0.6 seconds faster in the top-10 run-off than closest rival Vettel despite carrying 7.5kg more fuel!

The advantage pole position gives to the Brawn, which after longer, more dedicated aerodynamic testing than other cars pre-season is faster on the flat, means that unless a mistake is made it will be hard to stop the car from behind.

That could be where the veteran Barrichello comes into Brawn's plans. The 36-year-old is as errorless as anyone on the grid and when Button makes his mistake, the team will be hoping the most experienced driver in F1 history will be best-placed to take the chequered flag.

Malaysia will certainly come too quick for the other cars to catch up with the Brawn, but there is nothing ruling out a mechanical response, especially from the economic powerhouses, within the next few months.

Whether the inevitable improvements will be made before Brawn pull too far clear in the team and driver standings, or whether they will do enough to rein the Brawn in, is yet to be seen.

Indeed the effort going into further legal action over Brawn, Toyota and Williams' use of the diffuser suggests the other companies are not confident enough in the ability of their mechanics to turn their own cars around.

Yet even if the diffuser is scrapped, which continues to appear unlikely as the court hearing isn't for another two weeks - surely too deep into the season to make such a drastic ruling - that improvement alone didn't gift Brawn full points in Australia.

The other four drivers with a similar diffuser in their car finished fourth, sixth, 12th and Kazuki Nakajima's Williams retired after an accident 17 laps in. That doesn't exactly make it cold fusion for the motorsport industry.

As if further proof were needed, Barrichello's diffuser was barely useable for almost the entire race after Heikki Kovalainen smashed into it on the first corner of the first lap.

Malaysia's 56 laps are a long time though and if drivers such as Hamilton and Timo Glock, who each gained 15 places during the Australian GP, can earn better grid positions then there may be enough pressure on the Brawn pair for a surprise result to emerge.

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