2009 BRAZILIAN GRAND PRIX

Background

Local favourite Felipe Massa won the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix for Ferrari as Lewis Hamilton picked up the World Championship for McLaren by overtaking Timo Glock on the last corner of the race for 5th. Massa also won the race in 2006 , and was runner-up to teammate Kimi Räikkönen in 2007 as the Finn took the World Championship. The World title had been won at Interlagos for the previous 4 years, with Hamilton, Räikkönen and Fernando Alonso (twice) taking the title. Alonso has never won the Braz... The race has a history of home success, with Massa, Ayrton Senna , Nelson Piquet Sr , Carlos Pace and Emerson Fittipaldi winning. Rubens Barrichello aimed for his first win at Interlagos, hoping to improve on his previous best placing of 3rd in 2004 . Massa had targeted a return after injuries sustained in an accident in qualifying in the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix , but this was not possible. Massa instead was given the honour of waving the chequered flag at the end of the race. Championship leader Jenson Button needed to finish within four points of teammate Barrichello to seal the 2009 drivers' title. Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel needed to finish first or second in order to stay in the running for the title fight. In the constructors' standings, Brawn GP required just half a point to be declared champions, while Red Bull Racing needed to finish first and second in both Brazil and Abu Dhabi with Brawn not scoring in either round to take the title for themselves. GP2 driver and Toyota test driver Kamui Kobayashi replaced Toyota's Timo Glock after tests revealed that he had cracked a vertebra in his qualifying accident at the previous race at Suzuka . Tyre supplier Bridgestone selected the medium and supersoft tyres for the Grand Prix weekend.

Qualifying report

Qualifying was dominated by a tropical storm that would interrupt the session for over an hour, and made the session last 2 hours and 41 minutes, the longest qualifying session in the history of F1. [ better source needed ] The first session saw the elimination of Giancarlo Fisichella , both McLaren cars and championship contender Sebastian Vettel ; Nick Heidfeld joined them as the fifth and final car eliminated. The rains set in after the first session, delaying qualifying until the circu... When the weather had cleared and the cars eventually re-emerged, Rosberg would once again come out on top. The session was almost immediately red-flagged with Vitantonio Liuzzi crashing heavily at the first corner. Unable to set a time, he was subsequently eliminated. Q2 also saw the elimination of championship leader Jenson Button down in fourteenth and behind Jaime Alguersuari , Kamui Kobayashi and Romain Grosjean , the three least-experienced drivers in the field. For the first time since the knockout qualifying system was introduced, the third and final ten-minute session was contested by drivers from nine of the ten teams, the only exclusion being McLaren , with both Hamilton and Kovalainen having been knocked out in the first session; Williams were the only team to field two cars in the final session. Jenson Button 's closest championship rival and teammate Rubens Barrichello took his first pole since the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix at the same tra...

Qualifying classification

Cars that use the KERS system are marked with "‡"

Race report

The opening lap was dominated by three separate incidents. Heikki Kovalainen made contact with Sebastian Vettel coming out of the Senna 'S', and while Vettel emerged unscathed, Kovalainen ran out of road and very nearly collected Fisichella, who was forced to go the long way around. The second incident took place just two corners later when Jarno Trulli tangled with Adrian Sutil while trying to make a pass coming out of the fifth corner. Both the Toyota and the Force India were eliminated, with ... Pole-sitter Barrichello controlled the first phase of the race, though Mark Webber and Robert Kubica stayed in touch, just two and a half seconds adrift. Aided by the first-lap incidents and the safety car, Button was placed ninth at the end of the first lap. He proceeded to take Grosjean around the outside at Turn 6 and then Nakajima at the first corner once green-flag conditions resumed, before being held up by debutant Kamui Kobayashi. He was heard on the team radio voicing his displeasure at... Barrichello was unable to sustain the pace needed to maintain his lead over Webber, and in the first round of pit stops, the home town driver was passed by the Australian before coming under fire from Robert Kubica. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton — having started seventeenth — had pitted on the first lap and removed the softer tyre compound as his team switched him to a one-stop strategy. Other incidents early in the race saw Nick Heidfeld run out of fuel after his fuel-rig malfunctioned, whilst Koba... The second stage of the race saw Button leading a group of four one-stopping drivers, with their ultimate success or failures having consequences on the championship standings given Barrichello's position. Both Hamilton and then Vettel successfully leap-frogged Button after Button's second stop and the Briton was caught behind Kovalainen, though a fading Rubens Barrichello was in a position such that had the race ended there and then, Button would still be declared World Champion. Button inherit... Mark Webber, who had led unchallenged since the first stops, went on to win the race, with Robert Kubica securing BMW Sauber's first podium since Malaysia . It turned out to be team's last podium, as well the last for BMW as an engine supplier before pulling out Formula One. Lewis Hamilton's pass on Barrichello was good enough to net him third place and see McLaren overtake Ferrari for third in the constructors' standings. Sebastian Vettel was fourth when he needed to be first or second to conti...

Race classification

Cars that use the KERS system are marked with "‡"