2009 Spanish Grand Prix: Brawn GP Begin Saturday Well in Last Practice Session

After a great day yesterday, Saturday was looking promising for we Brawn fans and sure enough the lads delivered.  I believe the team will be greatly influenced this weekend by their new team mascot…..a 6ft 7inch Terminator in the back of the garage!

Practice Three: 11:00am - 12:00am, local time (10:00am - 11:00am, British time)

The thought that has developed since yesterday is that this weekend will be between Red Bull and Brawn so I was very interested to see how this session went.  As per usual this weekend, the Brawns were amongst the last to exit the pits for a sighter lap (5 minutes into the session).

It was at this stage that we learnt that Jenson will have a new gear box for this Grand Prix.  After the initial flurry of track activity, all of the teams dived back into their garages.  Timo Glock was the first man to set a time (1:25:937).  It took fifteen minutes to get more than one time up on the board! But after his first attempt Jenson managed a P11 (1:28:683, held up by traffic).  On his next run the Championship leader raised himself to P7 (1:23:704).  Meanwhile Rubens was in sixteenth after a first run (only to nick Jenson’s seventh place one lap later with a 1:23:687).

Rubens then put in a great time of 1:22:813 (P2) before both drivers returned to the pits and began to slip down the time sheets (as can be expected at this stage due to the track improving).  At the half hour mark Rubens was P4 and Jenson P13, but nobody could put in sterling times thanks to a yellow flagged section (Heidfeld’s BMW had an off at turn 12).

With twenty minutes left Rubens left the pits with fresh hard tyres.  After his first lap he raised himself to p2 (1:22:483).  Just one lap later though, Rubens became the first Brawn man to top the sheets on Saturday (1:21:906).  At this stage Jenson was going well in P7, but soon after was up to P3 (1:21:634).

The Brit continued to lap well, and eventually put in a great hard tyre time of 1:21:466.  This meant that Jenson was second fastest overall, but the best of the drivers on the hard compound (Glock in P1 was on softs).

At this stage the standings apparently represented race pace (and pretty much everyone was on softs).  It was therefore great that Jenson finished third (1:21:050) and Rubens, fourth (1:21:163).  The only two cars in front of the Brawns were Ferraris and crucially the Red Bulls were behind.  Roll on qualifying!

1 Felipe Massa       Ferrari         1:20.553

2 Kimi Räikkönen      Ferrari          1:20.635

3 Jenson Button     Brawn-Mercedes       1:21.050

4 Rubens Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes        1:21.163

5 Robert Kubica     BMW Sauber            1:21.239

6 Jarno Trulli     Toyota              1:21.256

7 Lewis Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes 1:21.346

8 Timo Glock    Toyota               1:21.377

9 Sebastien Buemi    STR-Ferrari                1:21.424

10 Fernando Alonso     Renault                1:21.499

11 Heikki Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes 1:21.519

12 Nico Rosberg    Williams-Toyota 1:21.594

13 Mark Webber     RBR-Renault               1:21.629

14 Sebastien Bourdais   STR-Ferrari               1:21.649

15 Nelsinho Piquet      Renault              1:21.685

16 Sebastian Vettel      RBR-Renault                  1:21.689

17 Giancarlo Fisichella   Force India-Mercedes 1:21.909

18 Kazuki Nakajima       Williams-Toyota 1:22.043

19 Adrian Sutil      Force India-Mercedes 1:22.232

20 Nick Heidfeld       BMW Sauber 1:23.457