
Button wins Aussie Grand Prix
- Published on Mar 28th, 2010 by Adam MilleneuveFormula One isn't boring... - that's the message from Australia where Jenson Button stormed to victory down under in an action packed and eventful grand prix that will silence all the critics of the 2010 F1 season. The podium had Felipe Massa in third, just behind Robert Kubica in second with Jenson on the top step. The final finishing order:

Jenson Button was rightly chuffed to pieces in the driver press conference saying "it just felt right" but before the lights went out today no one would have predicted such a podium. Moments before the lights went out at Albert Park, the sky grew darker and rain fell on the previously sun-soaked track.
It was to be a trip into the unknown for many of the drivers - starting a grand prix with cars full of fuel on damp track with intermediate tyres, but not surprisingly the ever impressive Sebastien Vettel took the lead from pole position, while behind him Felipe Massa had a awesome start to go up to second while his team mate Alonso spun after chopping across Jenson Button. Michael Schumacher was almost collected by Alonso in the incident, but escaped with a damaged front wing.
Only a few corners later and the safety car was deployed following a massive incident caused by a kamikaze effort from Kobayashi which caused him to heavily collide with Nico Hulkenberg and Sebastien Buemi. The sequence of events was triggered from the Japanese driver damaging his front wing which left him powerless and lucky not to have an even bigger shunt.
Once the race resumed so did Formula One, the sport we know and love with over taking opportunities being made at every corner and some terrific battles alongside some silly mistakes causing the order to change continuously in the tricky inconsistent conditions. Brilliant news for this grand prix and brilliant news for F1 as a sport.
After two laps with no more rain falling, the reigning champion shocked the entire paddock of teams and engineers, including his own pit crew by making the snap judgement call to come into the pits for dry tyres. While everyone else stuck to the intermediate tyres and watched the risk-taking McLaren with interest, Jenson took to the gravel, appearing to be struggling massively with very little grip.
By the next lap the champion lit up the timing boards with an almighty lap and prompted almost everyone else to pit for the dry tyres. There were many winners and losers here as drivers had to wait for a clear exit from their pit garage. Both Red Bull drivers stayed out a little longer, Webber lost out massively at this point.
After all the pit stops the race looked to settle down a little bit, until we lost sight of Vettel, only to find him buried a gravel trap following a brake failure leaving Jenson to pick up the lead. The young German will be wondering what he can do - two races, two pole positions, but the number of points of all the new teams combined.
With drivers starting on intermediate tyres and changing to dry tyres there was no need to use two different compounds and Jenson looked pretty safe up front in the lead. That said, the Ferraris of Massa and Fernando behind the super impressive Kubica in a Renault were not too far away and then further down the field, Lewis Hamilton was putting in some stonking lap times and battling Mark Webber. Lewis came in for fresh tyres only to come out and end up stuck behind the Ferrari duo for the remaining laps with the local hero on his rear wing.
With only a handful of laps left, Hamilton was looking racey and looked to make a move on Fernando Alonso for 4th, it wasn't going to work, he backed out of it, but Webber following closely could do nothing but take out the 2008 champion.
Jenson Button was left to run to the chequered flag first and pick up his second victory in Australia with a superb performance that sent a firm warning to Lewis that he isn't at McLaren to be the number 2 driver. Despite having the race of a lifetime, Hamilton was whining about strategy calls and looking very upset with the team. We'll look at this more later, but it could be the first sign of another team-mate related upset at McLaren.
Badger's heart goes out to Mark Webber who left the Australian Grand Prix with another poor result - he claimed the fastest lap of the day, but never had a shot at victory. There was plenty more action further down the grid and a massively underwhelming performance from a certain seven time world champion - stay tuned to Badger for the full race reaction in a little while...





















Comments and Discussion
Finally F1 returns to its best! Does anyone remember a previous wet melbourne?
Very disapointed with lewis's attitude - showing that when it all goes wrong he is not a team player.
Infact this reminds me of a simiar situation between Button & Barichello mid last season...
Unfortunate for Vettel - two poles and is yet to be on the podium because of reliability issues.
It's all very well making the fastest car in Qualifying but if you can't perform in the race then it's completely wasted.
Red Bull: must do better.
Indeed - Lewis appeared and sounded like a whining little brat.... no doubt he'll come out with some official statement later "I was disappointed but we're a team and we win and lose together" - that's not to say we don't appreciate Lewis - he drove that car like the clappers today and it was thrilling - but such behaviour as this just shows up how he's immature compared to Button.
Anyone else notice that Button called his strategy for tyres whereas Lewis just lets the team do it only to them blame them for him not winning.... hmm
Agreed - poor Vettel - odd how Webber has been ok in both races so far though - as a team they'll be frustrated and should swap the cars over - maybe Vettel just drives it too hard, he was properly going for it today, just as he was in Bahrain.
I have no doubts that things'll get sorted out at Red Bull and Vettel's car will become fast AND reliable. Just hope they do it quick enough so that this doesn't keep happening. T'will be a shame if from here on out things are good for him, but he loses the championship by say, ohhh, 38 point or so...
I've just heard the quote and it actually didn't sound like he was blaming the team outright (whining/crying however you want to put it) - just really regretting a wrong decision.
I thought Lewis drove phenomenally and almost believed he could have done one on the Ferraris, perhaps not Kubica, until Webber helped him into a spin.
Fantastic race though! I was on the edge of my seat from lap 1 onwards. Brilliant.
And why was the Aussie GP interesting? It wasn't because of the rain. Well okay it was, but why does rain make a race interesting? Because all of a sudden there is too much power for the cars to get traction. My suggestion. Let the constructors go bonkers on engines again. Let BMW make a 1.5L engine with turbo's the size of a small pony producing 2500bhp. And don't allow traction control.
You may say "What about safety?" 1. These are the best drivers in the world. Supposedly. If they can't drive a car with ridiculous amounts of power, they don't deserve to drive in F1. 2. Did you see Kubica's accident in Canada in 2007. The cars are safe.
My 2 cents.