Jenson Button will be hoping to regain his charge on the title race, that he had earlier in the season, this weekend at the Valencia sort-of street circuit.
After taking six wins from the first seven races, Button and his Brawn team have had a relatively tough time of it in the last three outings.
He’ll be keen for his team to find where they’ve gone wrong with recent developments, as the BGP 001 has become more sensitive than it was at the beginning of the year, and therefore harder to drive.
Jenson needs to fend off the charging Bulls of both Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, and has commented that if Webber keeps scything away at his lead, he’ll have overtaken Button in the Drivers’ Championship after a mere four races.
And being that there’s only seven races left in the season, Brawn GP must be data crunching overtime in the factory before this weekend’s practice starts on Friday.
Whereas McLaren are in something of a confident mood, hoping to score their second win of the season at a circuit which they think should suit their car.
And of the two MP4-24s that’ll be running, Heikki Kovalainen will be hoping it’s him that comes out on top, after McLaren top brass told him to step up his game or risk losing his seat in 2010.
A seat that has already been lost is Nelson Piquet’s over at Renault, who has been replaced by GP2 star Romain Grosjean.
The dual French-Swiss national – who races under the former’s flag – has had two wins in GP2 this season, but also a spectacular crash in Monaco, so he’ll be looking to show his mettle as quickly as possible.
Another driver hoping to impress this weekend is Luca Badoer. Filling in at Ferrari for the injured Felips Massa – after Michael Schumacher’s neck injury impeded him from restarting his career – he has said that his aim is to simply finish the race.
I’m sure those ‘promotional’ 200kms that he was allowed to run in the F60 this week will have helped him get comfortable with the car again.
Odd timing that don’t you think? Having to do promo duties only days before his first race. What a strange coincidence…
Lewis FTW
Come on Brawn, Barrichello and Brawn GP push that Benz engine and win again and again!!!!
My money is on Force India
this season has shown a lot of surprises. watch out for
for the charging red bulls.
@ Oi, i hope you have a lot of money to waste then.
“Oh Luca, we forgot to pick up some milk at the shops, could you go out in the F60 and get some”, says Ferrari boss. Promotional…please.
Time for some Mclaren dominance I think, its about time. And I do hope Heiki stays at Mclaren next year.
The 2009 F1 season is getting a heck of a lot of rookie entrants:
Buemi,
Alguersauri
Badoer
Groesjean.
Therefore, there will probably be a lot more crashes in this season, because the rookies won’t have had much time in the car.
Hopefully this might result in an actually interesting race at Valencia for a change…..
RedBull and Williams didn’t want Shumacher to test the F60 for one day, but they were OK with Border to test it for two days.
Everyone is scared that BIG Shu would return and immediatly become competitive
SVettel @ 8, Badoer isn’t a rookie, he raced in the ’90s
Anyway, interesting race brewing, think Brawn, Red Bull and McLaren will be competitive, hard to see the outcome.
f1 is ruined,it’s flogging a dead horse,guys and possibly guyesses
:(:(:(:(:(
It doesn’t matter. Give Badoer 2500 km of promotional tours in the Valencia circuit, he will still be 2 seconds slower than Kimi… I’m sure he’s a hell of a tester, having helped developing the best Ferraris ever for Schumi, but racing is not his biz.
Vettel-Button-Weber. 10.000.000 lire on that trifecta.
i really want to see a brawn & toyota top 4 (along with red bull) to round up the top six… throw those in any mixture of positions you see fit, & i’ll be happy!
Looking forward to Friday I hope luda does a good job he deserves a second chance and I hope that the Finns do well because by looks of things they are going to loose their seats.
Vettel for the win
Meant Luca not luda
Ferrari are the masters at bending rules or pushing it to the absoblute maximum~! But well those “promotional” laps probably hopfully won’t mean too much really, apparantly the tyres aren’t of the same specification, and they aren’t allowed to go over 100km/h. But given how tight Fiorano is, should still be enough to push the car hard at a few places to understand how its response.
@JCTK I initially thought they were limited to 100km/h, but actually they could go as fast as they liked. Only for a 100km each day though.
G.B./Button v Aus/Webber v Ger/Vettel…
Redbull is going to overtake Brawn and Button for the driver/constructor championship at this rate.
The real question is, what if Badoer out-scores Massa and Kimi in the rest of the season? Consistant podium etc.
Badoer has had plenty of time in the car anyway, much more than Schumacher. As has been said above though, he has never been a competitive racer, and I would be surprised to see him challenging for a point. I hope to see more improvement for McClaren, but ultimately for Brawn to reestablish their lead. I only say this because it challenges the estalished order, which is never a bad thing. It promotes competitiveness and innovation, which is F1’s reason for being after all.
Vettel for WDC 09!
good luck to Badoer! Forza!
Names of teams we most want to fail in F1
1. US F1
Sorry, but I am still confused, are Aston Martin (or Pro drive) going to be racing next year or not? Or the year after that?
i was trying to rememmber the Valencia race from last season, so i watched some highlights.
then i remembered why i’d forgotten about it.
sayin that though it should be tight this time round, Brawns’ll be quick again at the top.
AND THANK THE LORD HEIKKI HAS GOTTEN THE HURRY-UP.
@ GT5
Prodrive were turned down a place next season.
BUT there’s been a bit of a controversy with the selection process (a complicated thing with the FIA saying teams HAD to use Cosworth engines, which is an illegal thing for the governing body to specify, when many applicant teams already had a deal with another engine supplier – a complaint has been lodged with the European Commission or something, by one of the teams who were denied a place, for the process to be taken again, so there might still be a slim chance.)
Something that bothers me immensely: why do the 2010 rules not show the aero back to normal?? The 2009 cars are tremendously ugly with this huge front wing and small high back wing and it had no result at all…
I mean sorry for changing the subject but since you all are experts maybe someone can tell me?
it is because the fia are idiots and once someone who cares about racing is in charge it will change
This ban on refueling is really annoying me now, it just feels like its losing something massive, the teams participation in the actual race, the strategy and some of the speed and agility of the cars themselves.
But at least we get low fuel Q3, not much of a consolation but something I have been wanting for a long time
Valentino: Are you blind? This years cars look like proper racing cars again, rather than an designer’s ‘pin-up’ Think of the nicest looking F1 car ever… a 2002-2008 one? Nope.
Agree with anonymous no refueling annoying me it takes most of the strategy out of f1 I want to add that if you actually look into Lucas background he has only driven bad cars by which I mean the nineties equivalents of force India and in the rest of the series that he has competed in he has been rather good so maybe he will surprise us and I think renaults new guy will do better than piquet( did anyone else see what nelson said about flavio talk about raging bulls) jaime will be better maybe even a q2 performance expect a fight for fifth between maccas and fezzas while red bull and a revitalized brawn come out on top again.
Todt for president
Mclaren/Lewis are close to proving that the much-maligned KERS can be very effective and a big advantage on fast tracks. Definitely a major contender this weekend. I hope Red Bull continue to finish ahead of Brawn – I would love to see either RB driver win the title: everyone knows how good Vettel is and what a nice bloke he is and Webber is FINALLY showing the sort of ability alot of us always knew he possessed…and also – a really nice bloke too!
Also, good luck to Luca – not only is he contending with the pressure of not having raced in F1 for a decade, of having to fill Massa’s shoes but with all the recent shenanigans, he’s also effectively having to fill Schumacher’s shoes too..hmm..in at the deep end or what? This is going to be one hell of a test session for him
@no.8, badoer isn’t a rookie
I think banning refueling is a wise decision, but not quite good enough. Apart from refueling I believe tyre-changes should be banned as well.
Pitlanes should be open only for damage repairs and changing to intermediates/rain tyres.
It would indeed take away strategy as a cornerstone of modern F1, and that would be so good for proper racing.
Starting in fifth and fancy a win ? There would be only one way: exactly, OVERTAKING !!
F1 would really benefit from heroic drivers taking proper risks in order to finish higher up. I’m sure a lot of race-fans rather see that compared to driving around in static order, waiting for the next series of stops to get out in front…
Still wishes Massa was there to drive…
haha, Badoer is last
ha ha lewis hamilton the brit is last.
I hope Button wins the championship i’ve supported him ever since i first watched F1 for the first time and i think he really deserves it, GO BUTTON
Cool site, love the info.