A Brawn Driver on Top on Friday!

After those first two great races and the fantastic news on Wednesday that the Brawn cars are legal, I could hardly wait for the first 100 percent legal test of 2009!  Even after the dream start, Jenson is keeping his sensible hat on and believes that the World Championship will not be a cakewalk.

He stated that he was “understandably delighted with how [the team's] season has begun, but we are only two races in and everyone at the team is aware that our competitors will not stand still...We fully expect a tough fight from here if we want to continue our early successes.”

For Rubens, a return to China so early in the season has been strange, but the track holds good memories for the Brazilian.  In 2004 Rubens gained his long awaited and much deserved first GP win. 

The excited Brawn number two stated “The BGP 001 has gone well at the two very different race tracks in Australia and Malaysia so it will be interesting to see how the car performs in Shanghai which is quite a unique circuit.” 

There are expected to be showers in Shanghai this weekend, now last weekend this would have worried me as the BGP 001 was untested in wet conditions.  However, I think we can now safely say, it aint half bad in the wet!

Although Brawn have been dominant on Saturday and Sunday, they are yet to blow away the time sheets on Friday Practice.  Perhaps the British team use every last free second to test and perfect their car and so concentrate on this on day one?

Perhaps they love lulling their competitors into a false sense of security; (remember how well Ferrari did in the Malaysian practice, only to throw it away on Saturday?).  Jenson Button was sporting a new helmet design for this Grand Prix. 

The special design thanks everyone at Brackley for their hard work and determination, but would the new helmet help Jens in his Friday practice?

Friday Practice, 17 April 2009

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

It initially looked as if the day would belong to McLaren who topped the times Practice One.  Lewis was top with Kovalainen in fourth.  Encouragingly the Brawns of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello finished up second and third.

Jenson put in strong performances with a finishing time of 1:37:450, but his British rival was just that little bit faster.  Rubens also drove well with an ultimate time of 1:37:566 which was very nice to see. 

Practice One was very good for Brawn.  Jens and Rubens may have dominated Saturday and Sunday, but they never really dominated on a Friday.  To see them both in the top four was good news and left me feeling excited about Practice two.

1 Lewis Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes 1:37.334

2 Jenson Button      Brawn-Mercedes 1:37.450

3 Rubens Barrichello    Brawn-Mercedes 1:37.566

4 Heikki Kovalainen     McLaren-Mercedes 1:37.672

5 Mark Webber       RBR-Renault               1:37.752

6 Jarno Trulli              Toyota               1:37.764

7 Nico Rosberg       Williams-Toyota 1:37.860

8 Timo Glock                Toyota               1:37.894

9 Fernando Alonso       Renault               1:38.08

10 Sebastien Bourdais     STR-Ferrari               1:38.195

11 Kimi Räikkönen         Ferrari               1:38.223

12 Sebastian Vettel      RBR-Renault               1:38.274

13 Sebastien Buemi      STR-Ferrari               1:38.307

14 Adrian Sutil              Force India-Mercedes 1:38.319

15 Felipe Massa      Ferrari               1:38.418

16 Nick Heidfeld      BMW Sauber               1:38.456

17 Giancarlo Fisichella   Force India-Mercedes 1:38.460

18 Robert Kubica      BMW Sauber               1:38.463

19 Kazuki Nakajima      Williams-Toyota 1:38.730

20 Nelsinho Piquet     Renault               1:38.825

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

We first saw a Brawn car with about an hour and eighteen minutes to go.  It was Rubens and he managed a time of 1:38:792, which put the Brazilian in P12.  At this stage the Torro Rosso cars were the pacesetters.  Soon after Rubens shot up to third which was good!  After five laps Jenson was putting in times worthy of only P13, but it was still early.

It seemed as if each team was having a go at having their two drivers top the time sheets. After Torro Rosso came the "Friday specialists," Williams.  Rosberg put in a decent time of 1:37:464 and at this stage Jenson was 0:781s down on this time in P9.

Throughout the early period of Friday practice the Brawn cars stayed around P10 to P15 as they evaluated the cars' performance.  With 58 minutes remaining Jenson overtook Rubens for the first time, clawing his way up to P9 (Rubens was now P10).

By this time it was the Red Bull team who were on top (which was slightly concerning as a Brawn fanatic as Jenson has warned that he thinks Red Bull are Brawn's biggest threat).  However, my worries were washed away when Rubens emerged from the pits with soft tyres on and shot up the grid to P1!

 With just over half an hour remaining the Brawn drivers began to dominate.  Rubens was the first man to go under 1:36s with a time of 1:35:995.  Whereas many drivers before had been very fast in sectors one and two, the Brazilian Brawn man was fast throughout.

Jenson’s first few laps on the softs raised him to P4 with a time of 1:36:205, but Rubens was the man to watch as he shot round taking 0:114s off his time.  Both Brawn drivers then began to put in very fast times and the cars seemed to be working the tyres nicely. 

The order stayed the same until there were only eight minutes left, when Jenson put in a 1:35:679.  This was a great time and no one else could beat it.  With three minutes left the Friday specialist, Rosberg was going very quickly, but he only managed to split the Brawns and gain P2.

1 Jenson Button      Brawn-Mercedes 1:35.679

2 Nico Rosberg      Williams-Toyota 1:35.704 0

3 Rubens Barrichello    Brawn-Mercedes 1:35.881

4 Mark Webber      RBR-Renault               1:36.105

5 Sebastian Vettel      RBR-Renault               1:36.167

6 Jarno Trulli               Toyota               1:36.217

7 Kazuki Nakajima      Williams-Toyota 1:36.377

8 Timo Glock                Toyota               1:36.548

9 Heikki Kovalainen      McLaren-Mercedes 1:36.674

10 Sebastien Bourdais     STR-Ferrari               1:36.800

11 Adrian Sutil                Force India-Mercedes 1:36.829

12 Felipe Massa        Ferrari               1:36.847

13 Lewis Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes 1:36.941

14 Kimi Räikkönen         Ferrari               1:37.054

15 Sebastien Buemi      STR-Ferrari       1:37.219

16 Nelsinho Piquet      Renault               1:37.273

17 Robert Kubica      BMW Sauber               1:37.491

18 Nick Heidfeld     BMW Sauber               1:37.544

19 Fernando Alonso      Renault                1:37.638

20 Giancarlo Fisichella   Force India-Mercedes 1:37.750

So a great start after all of the hardships of Paris.  Brawn strong in both Practice sessions; I only hope this can continue to Saturday and Sunday! Fingers crossed Brawn fanatics!!