Encouraging Practice for Brawn GP

After a wonderful dream start to the 2009 campaign in Melbourne, Button stated that everyone at Brawn were keen to get to Malaysia. 

However, as the Championship leader, (I love writing that), continued, “the Malaysian Grand Prix is always one of the toughest races of the season and it will be a real challenge for our new car with so little testing under our belts.

Malaysia has a really hot and humid climate which really tests the car's durability and coupled with the frequent torrential downpours can make for an unpredictable race weekend.”

 Malaysia is a special circuit for Jens as it was the first track to give him a podium in 2004.  So after the ‘near perfect performance’ (the words of Martin Brundle) last weekend, how did Jens do in Friday practice?

Friday Practice, 3rd April 2009

Practice One: 10:00pm - 11:30pm, local time (03:00am - 04:30am, British time)

Just like last weekend it was Williams’ Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima who eventually finished on top of the Friday practice one time sheet.  However, for we Brawn fanatics the good news is that Jenson Button led for most of the session, only being knocked off right at the end!

Initially, wait for it…There was a "Brawn supremacy" (I know lots of people have already used this…I just had to fit it in somewhere).  Button’s white charger led, with Rubens Barrichello second.

Thanks to the rocketing Williams right at the end, the two Brawn cars finished the first session third (Jens) and fourth (Rubens). 

Pos Driver                   Team                       Time/Retired Laps

1 Nico Rosberg    Williams-Toyota                       1:36.260 27

2 Kazuki Nakajima    Williams-Toyota                       1:36.305 25

3 Jenson Button    Brawn-Mercedes                       1:36.430 20

4 Rubens Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes                         1:36.487 22

5 Felipe Massa    Ferrari                                  1:36.561 21

6 Kimi Räikkönen    Ferrari                                 1:36.646 18

7 Lewis Hamilton    McLaren-Mercedes                   1:36.699 16 

8 Mark Webber   RBR-Renault                         1:36.703 23

9 Sebastian Vettel   RBR-Renault                         1:36.747 25

10 Timo Glock   Toyota                                         1:36.980 27

11 Jarno Trulli   Toyota                                         1:36.982 26

12 Giancarlo Fisichella Force India                               1:37.025 20

13 Robert Kubica   BMW Sauber                          1:37.039 18

14 Nelsinho Piquet  Renault                                  1:37.199 20

15 Adrian Sutil  Force India                                        1:37.241 18

16 Fernando Alonso Renault                                  1:37.395 12

17 Sebastien Buemi  STR-Ferrari                          1:37.634 22

18 Nick Heidfeld  BMW Sauber                          1:37.640 17

19 Sebastien Bourdais STR-Ferrari                          1:38.022 19

20 Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes                       1:38.483 7

Friday Practice Two: 14:00pm - 15:30pm, local time (07:00am - 08:30am, British time)

Though neither Brawn car finished in the top five for practice two the session was still encouraging.  Ferrari dominated the second session with Kimi putting in a decent 1:35:707 and Massa in second.  Jens and Rubens lapped well finishing P6 (Rubens) and P7 (Jens). 

There was good news and bad news at the end of the day.  The good news being that Honda, (now Brawn), tend to run heavy cars for second practice.  So, to finish up where they did was a great start. 

However, arguably the bad news was rather scary! Though the sky was black, and a few drops fell here and there, it didn’t rain.  As Jenson said himself on Thursday, “Our problem is that we haven’t done any running in the wet with our car…It will be crucial for us to set the cars up just right for the wet. If we get that wrong, we’ll be nowhere.”

Rain is expected on race day, so no doubt there were probably some anxious smiles amongst the pleased ones!

Pos Driver                Team                         Time/Retired Laps

1 Kimi Räikkönen   Ferrari                          1:35.707 40

2 Felipe Massa   Ferrari                          1:35.832 38

3 Sebastian Vettel   RBR-Renault                   1:35.954 40

4 Nico Rosberg    Williams-Toyota                1:36.015 39

5 Mark Webber    RBR-Renault                  1:36.026         36

6 Rubens Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes                 1:36.161 37

7 Jenson Button    Brawn-Mercedes               1:36.254 31

8 Kazuki Nakajima    Williams-Toyota                1:36.290 35

9 Heikki Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes              1:36.397 40

10 Nelsinho Piquet     Renault                           1:36.401 35

11 Lewis Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes            1:36.515         30

12 Jarno Trulli             Toyota                          1:36.516 34

13 Sebastien Buemi     STR-Ferrari                   1:36.628 32

14 Timo Glock              Toyota                          1:36.639 29

15 Fernando Alonso      Renault              1:36.640 20

16 Adrian Sutil              Force India              1:36.875         36

17 Robert Kubica     BMW Sauber              1:37.267 38

18 Sebastien Bourdais    STR-Ferrari              1:37.278 30

19 Giancarlo Fisichella  Force India              1:37.432 27

20 Nick Heidfeld     BMW Sauber              1:37.930 37

All in all a very nice start for Brawn GP at their second race practice.  The lack of rain is troubling, but the car was strong and many commentators believe the team to have something up their sleeves.  Fingers crossed for a repeat performance of last Saturday!