How the 2009 F1 season unfolded
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By Mark Hughes
BBC F1 commentary box producer
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A Formula 1 season that will be long remembered for its unpredictability also produced a series of great performances from the men behind the wheel. This is my assessment of the five best driving performances of 2009.
SEBASTIAN VETTEL, CHINESE GRAND PRIX
This was the race
that put the final seal on Sebastian Vettel as a very special talent. Limited by a driveshaft seal leak to just one run in each of the three qualifying sessions, the German put the Red Bull on a resounding pole with a lap that left team-mate Mark Webber reeling with reluctant admiration. When race day then produced a downpour, the stage was set for a demonstration of wet-weather driving that stands comparison with anyone's.
Chinese Grand Prix in 90 seconds
Vettel made light work of the atrocious conditions, left Webber to be delayed in finding his way past Jenson Button's compromised Brawn and by the time the Australian got past, Vettel had an unassailable lead. He had an answer for everything on this day and, even when the timing of the safety car wiped away the margin he had built up, giving the Brawns their stops for free, he just set about building it all over again.
JENSON BUTTON, SPANISH GRAND PRIX
Jenson Button should not have won in Barcelona, not once he had been passed by team-mate Rubens Barrichello away from the start, leaving him to ponder the fact that the Brazilian was further advantaged by being fuelled to go longer to the first stops.
Spanish Grand Prix in 90 seconds
Both were on three-stop strategies; theoretically that was the fastest way from the front at the Circuit de Catalunya. But, trapped behind Barrichello, Button couldn't go quick enough in his first stint to have emerged in front of the slower Nico Rosberg's Williams after his stop - and so the team switched him to a two-stop. Barrichello was left on the faster three-stop. To overcome that disadvantage required Button to deliver a whole middle stint's worth of qualifying laps - and that's exactly what he did. When the rear tyres began to wilt under the strain, he just adapted his driving, taking the Brawn by the scruff of the neck and oversteering it to a lap time. It was
a drive
that
left Rubens
blah-blah-blah-ing.
LEWIS HAMILTON, SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX
Lewis Hamilton's
dominance of the Singapore weekend
was total, his wall-skimming precision and supernatural car control quite breathtaking to behold.
Singapore Grand Prix in 90 seconds
Yet there was nothing to suggest the McLaren was naturally the fastest cat there. It turns in well, but by this time so did the Red Bull. It rides the bumps well, but perhaps not as well as the Brawn or Williams and no better than the Red Bull. Its Kers power boost was of only marginal value around this layout and probably detracted from the braking stability so essential there. At various times in the weekend the Red Bull, Williams and Brawn looked as quick or quicker. Yet there was Lewis sticking it on pole and disappearing into the distance on Sunday. Certainly McLaren could see nothing in their data that suggested they had an advantage other than from the man in the cockpit.
ROBERT KUBICA, BRAZILIAN GRAND PRIX
BMW trimmed as much downforce as they dared from their car for Interlagos, to give their drivers a chance of overtaking, realising they were not going to be running at the front on outright pace. So it was a minor miracle that Robert Kubica managed to get the car through the very wet first and second qualifying sessions.
Brazilian Grand Prix in 90 seconds
Team-mate Nick Heidfeld, in the same boat, was knocked out in the first session, about where you would expect a low-downforce car in the wet to be. Lewis Hamilton was stuck there for the exact same reason. Somehow, though, Kubica got all the way to the final session, where he qualified eighth. That was just the foundation of a quite brilliant race,
one in which he beat Rubens Barrichello's title-contending Brawn
- a vastly superior car - in a straight fight to finish second. This was despite having to nurse an overheating engine from the 10th lap onward, a motor already well past its nominal mileage limit.
GIANCARLO FISICHELLA, BELGIAN GRAND PRIX
The Force India was a better car than was generally realised once it got its upgrade at the European Grand Prix in Valencia.
Belgian Grand Prix in 90 seconds
Furthermore, the car was particularly effective in low-wing trim, generating more downforce for less drag than almost any other car when the circuit layout demanded such a wing setting. Such as at Spa. But that still left the veteran Fisichella having to produce a very special lap to out-qualify the similarly low-drag effective Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen, not to mention the Red Bulls, Brawns and Toyotas. Unfortunately for the Italian, the safety car came out on the first lap just as it looked like he might have been able to get himself out of range of Raikkonen's Kers-boosted Ferrari. The re-bunching of the field allowed the Finn another bite at the cherry and Fisichella was literally powerless to prevent the Ferrari going by. All he could do from there was to
pressure Raikkonen for the rest of the afternoon
but Kimi wasn't up for noticing. It was a great underdog drive from 'Fisi' and his subsequent form in the very Ferrari that denied him that day was unfathomable.
Mark Hughes has been an F1 journalist for 10 years. He is the award-winning author of several books
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