Valencia Spain

Valencia Spain

Valencia, Spain, on Sunday, a race that was more interesting for the misfortunes of certain drivers than for the prowess of the leaders. After a bad pit stop on Lap 37 by the McLaren Mercedes team, its reigning world champion driver, Lewis Hamilton, who had driven a perfect race, handed an otherwise certain victory to the man behind him, Rubens Barrichello. Still, Barrichello drove a perfect race in his Brawn to win the 10th victory of his career, and his first since the Chinese Grand Prix of 2004 when he drove for Ferrari. He broke down in tears on the wind down lap as he spoke to his team director, Ross Brawn. “It’s been a weekend that I will never forget,” Barrichello said afterwards. “After five years you don’t forget how to do it. But in the middle of the race they are telling me push, push push. There was a lot going through my mind, but the car has been perfect and I want to thank the team for that.”

At 37, Barrichello is the oldest regular driver in the series, and holds the record for the most races run in the series by any driver, with 281 races since he began racing in Formula One in 1993. The victory lifts Barrichello back into second place in the championship. His teammate, Jenson Button, who finished seventh, leads the series with 72 points, Barrichello is second with 54 points, Mark Webber is third with 51.5 points. Barrichello drove the 57 laps of the race in 1 hour 35 minutes and 51.2 seconds. Hamilton finished second at 2.3 while Kimi Raikkonen finished third at 15.9 seconds from the leader. A boring race at a track designed to be like Monaco, and taking on as a result the Monaco problems of it being nothing but a procession. But in addition to a perfect drive by Barrichello and intelligent strategy by his team, the focus of the interest was on all the little problems of the championship leaders and new drivers.

Button finished only seventh, to score two points. The leader of the championship has scored points in every race, but he was outshined by his teammate this weekend. He started in fifth position and dropped to eighth on the first lap and then Mark Webber passed him on Lap 6 so he dropped to ninth. Webber, after an excellent race finished only ninth and failed to gain any points. Meanwhile, Barrichello’s race was brilliantly executed in a strategic brilliance. Before the race Barrichello had said that he preferred to start third on the grid but with the right amount of fuel rather than on pole with too little fuel. And indeed, as the race progressed he proved how right he was. At the start of the race he held his third place grid position through the first corner after Kovalainen held him back. He then spent the first 17 laps following Kovalainen and impossible to pass him on the narrow, slippery track on the Spanish coast.