JENSON BUTTON - WORLD CHAMPION
Well, we've become used to the Brazilian Grand Prix playing a crucial role in the championship. Last year it was the place where Lewis Hamilton became the first British world champion for over a decade. This year, it provides Jenson Button a second shot at winning the '09 title. Elsewhere, there was yet another new driver in the F1 mix, with Glock out of action due to injuries sustained in Japan, Japanese rookie Kamui Kobayashi got called up from GP2 off the back of covering for Glock in a practice session in Japan. Jenson's mission for Brazil? Well if he finished on the podium he would win the title, top five he would take Vettel out of the picture at least. Bottom line the pressure was all on his rivals.
Qualifying was...well very wet indeed and few guys could really get their act together. Lewis was one of those that couldn't and he wound up starting P17. Jenson survived to Q2 but then he fell foul of the conditions and wound up starting P14. Ahead of him but also eliminated were Grojean(P13), Algusuari(P12 - matching his career best) and Kobayashi(P11 on his debut). In Q3 Barrichello set the first fast time but was quickly outgunned by Buemi before Rubens replied, then Kubica, then Trulli then Barrichello, then Webber then finally Barrichello secured his first pole since Brazil '04! Webber P2, Sutl P3, Trulli P4, Raikonen P5, Buemi P6(career best grid slot and the best one by a Swiss driver since Marc Surer in Australia 1985!), Rosberg P7, Kubica P8, Nakajima P9 and Alonso P10.
In the race itself, well the track was now dry and Jenson was able to scorch through the pack, making his way up to 9th pretty smoothly before finding himself in a dice with various rookies, the biggest headache of which was Kobayashi who was relying on GP2 tactics. Still that got him as far as 7th in his most aggressive drive for ages and pitstops saw him up into 3rd. Taking Koyayashi got him into 2nd and then he was actually winning a Grand Prix for the first time in ages. Jenson fans were then given a reality check as he found himself in 11th after his pitstop. However he wasn't done yet and made his way back to 8th before benefitting from pitstops to make 6th before rejoining in 8th and making his way up again to 7th before Barrichello got a puncture and with Kovalainen stopping late on, Jenson was able to come hope in 5th! By itself that was not good enough to win the championship, Barrichello could still have taken the title fight to the wire by winning the race. However with his puncture he was only able to finish 8th!
So there we have it! Jenson Button is the 2009 world champion! I can't think of a race of his that I missed watching either live or recorded since he was a well-hyped rookie making his debut for Williams in Australia 2000! Since then, well he's certainly had his iffy times and he's had his share of cars that were, to put it politely, useless. Plenty of people had given up on his ever competing for a title, let alone winning one. I remember one French moron who said on a message board back in early '07 that he should retire, and even I was worried for his future at the end of '08. What Ross Brawn and his guys pulled off last winter just proves how smart the "big bear" is. Some may say that Lewis is a better driver than Jenson, and they'd have a point. The fact is though, that this title is well deserved and Jenson and Lewis are Britain's first back-to-back F1 title winners since Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart in 1968-9. You can't argue with those stats.
However there was still a race going on and Lewis put up an equally awesome effort to surge through the pack and secure himself some more points, leapfrogging even Jenson late on. He wasn't a realistic contender for the race though but 3rd was a pretty good way to end what starting out as a very frustrating season. Up front, well Rubens was actually leading early on but it was Webber who went on to take the lead and no one then looked like stopping him from claiming his second win of the season, matching Alan Jones's 1981 performance. Kubica come up with a great performance of his own to grab 2nd, his best result of the season.
So there we have it. Jenson Button claims the 2009 world championship with 89 points with a lead of 15 points. Further down, his predecessor Lewis is also on form moving up to 5th in the championship with 49 points thought that's the best he's going to get this year.
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