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Jenson Button claimed his third pole position of the year in Saturday’s qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Starting his final flying lap just seconds before the end of the session, Button set a lap time of 1:20.527, a tenth of a second faster than second place man Sebastian Vettel.

Button’s team mate, Rubens Barrichello, will start from third on the grid alongside Felipe Massa which should warm some cockles back at Maranello.

Kimi Raikkonen was driving the new ‘Superleggera’ version of the F60, which gave him 10kg more ballast weight to play with but while both the Red Cars were quick in practice an error in strategy saw Raikkonen being dropped in the first qualifying session.

In a repeat of Malaysia, Ferrari thought Kimi’s time would be enough to get him through to the second qualifying session and so decided not to send him out again.  As it turned out he was 2 tenths slower than Sebastien Buemi and will start way back on the eighth row of the grid.

Still, it does look like Ferrari have made significant improvement since Bahrain and Raikkonnen is confident the team can improve further:

We are still a bit behind, I would say, but it’s much stronger than it was before.  It’s only the first step, so we can get some more for the next races. After that, for sure we can catch them up even if it takes a little while.

I don’t know if we can tomorrow or not, but in the later races we can definitely fight for wins, podiums and good positions.

As expected, the McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen performed poorly and only managed 14th and 18th, respectively.

2009 Spanish Grand Prix Qualifying Results

Image: Brawn GP

After a two week break Formula One returns to Europe for the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend.

Jenson Button has dominated the opening races but most teams will be heading to Barcelona with significant upgrades so expect Toyota and Red Bull to be nipping at Brawn’s heels.

While McLaren, Renault and Force India have already run interim double-decker diffusers, Spain will see Ferrari deploying their version and we will find out if Adrian Newey has managed to wrap a new diffuser around the Red Bull’s fancy rear suspension.

BMW have abandoned KERS for now and are hoping a significant aero update (although without a double-diffuser) can salvage their terrible start to the season.  BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen is optimistic:

The aerodynamic package we will line up with in Barcelona is extensive and affects practically every part of the car.  That is why I am convinced that we will take the first step in Barcelona.  We are expecting to be more than half a second quicker per lap.

Heikki Kovalainen still can’t remember anything about the 2008 Spanish Grand Prix after parking his car in the wall but the high-downforce Circuit de Catalunya probably won’t suit the McLaren.  Lewis Hamilton will be hard pressed to equal his fourth place in Bahrain but having the best KERS on the grid might help.

To make your predictions in round 5 of the f1buzz prediction game, just leave a comment on this post with your driver predictions for the race in the following format:

Pole:
First:
Second:
Third:
Fastest lap:

The deadline is start of qualifying on Saturday.  Good luck!

Last week, the FIA announced plans to introduce a budget cap of £40m in 2010.

The teams are split as to whether this is good idea or not and whether it could result in a two-tier Championship.

Smaller teams like Brawn GP are likely to benefit from such an arrangement but Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo wasn’t pleased and wrote a stern letter to FIA president Max Mosely outlining his concerns.

This prompted a reply from Mosely suggesting that Formula One could do just fine without Ferrari and if they don’t like the rules then they don’t have to play.

In the middle of these rising tensions Bernie Ecclestone provided some elucidation in the Times saying of Mosley:

The trouble with Max is he’s not capable, like in the past, of wrapping things up nicely with a pink ribbon and things. He wants to put it in an old cardboard box and tie it with string.

and of di Montezemolo:

The trouble with Luca is that you shouldn’t let Max ever be in a position where he can start a debate or an argument. He’s reasonably clever and you won’t win. Even if you do win, it’s like you being in the audience and me being there with the microphone. You say something smart and I don’t give you the microphone — it’s as easy as that.

finally wrapping things up with:

It would appear that everyone is in favour of the cap, including Ferrari, if we can get them to agree, which we can.

Right.  So no problems there, then!

Jenson Button and Brawn GP have dominated the start of the 2009 Formula One season, winning three out of the four races so far.  If you listen to Renault’s Flavio Briatore that is almost entirely down to a ‘unique’ interpretation of the rules but since the FIA declared double-decker diffusers legal all the ‘non-diffuser’ teams have been working hard to redesign the back of their cars.

After the flyaway races in the East, the Spanish Grand Prix marks the start of the European tour and most teams will be bringing significant car updates to the Circuit de Catalunya this weekend.  These updates, and the fact that the drivers and teams know the track backwards from winter testing, should make for a close race on Sunday.

One of only three teams to use KERS this season, BMW have abandoned the device for Spain in favour of a comprehensive aerodynamic update.  Team boss Mario Theissen said:

We will not be equipping either cars with KERS in Barcelona.  It was a case of lining up with either a comprehensive aerodynamic update or KERS.  The tuning time on Friday would be too short.

I’m not sure why they can’t run KERS with the new aero update but BMW will be hoping it brings an improvement to their apalling start to the season.

Now that in-season testing is banned, the teams face a new problem when developing their cars this year.  Previously, teams could run many miles testing new aero packages before racing them.  This year it won’t be until they take to the track in Friday practice that they will know if any new parts are successful. Toro Rosso’s chief engineer, Laurent Mekies:

Obviously we don’t have testing now so we have to understand how the upgrade suits the direction we have taken so far.  Does it push in the same direction or does it ask us to reconsider some of the choices we have made already?

McLaren already made significant improvement in Bahrain with Lewis Hamilton wringing the most out of the MP4-24 to finish fourth and so will not be bringing anything special to Spain.  The Barcelona track is unlikely to suit the McLaren but Hamilton remains hopeful of another strong finish:

We won’t have the bigger upgrades of some of the other teams as we already introduced several new parts during the opening flyaways, so it will be interesting to see where we sit in the order. Nevertheless, the engineers are optimistic that our new diffuser and front wing will once again help us to make progress towards the front of the grid.

Currently fourth in the Constructors’ Championship, McLaren will be hoping for a stronger performance at Barcelona than they displayed there in winter testing.

Image: Brawn GP

For the first time, the final race of the 2009 Formula One World Championship will be held at the new Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi.  Despite rumours that the circuit will not be ready for the inaugural race in November, the circuit’s developers are confident everything is going according to schedule.

But should Formula One even be going to Abu Dhabi?

A report in the Observer on Sunday claims the US has videos of a member of the Abu Dahbi royal family torturing at least 25 people.  Sheikh Issa bin Zayed Al Nayhan is the son of the late United Arab Emirates President Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and the brother of the present ruler of Abu Dhabi.

A video shown on ABC News shows the prince, with the help of a man in police uniform, torturing Mohammed Sha Poor, an Afghan grain merchant.  In the video, the prince beats the man with a wooden plank with nails in it, sets him on fire and attacks him with a cattle prod before running him over several times in his Mercedes SUV.

The UAE Ministry of the Interior said it had reviewed the tape and in a statement said:

The incidents depicted in the video tapes were not part of a pattern of behavior.  All rules, policies and procedures were followed correctly by the Police Department.

WTF?

It turns out the Minister of the Interior is also a sibling of Sheikh Issa.

The new Yas Marina circuit looks like it could be pretty spectacular but it calls into question Bernie Ecclestone’s strategy of selling Formula One to the highest bidder.  The UAE might have lots of money but they have few Formula One fans and some serious human rights issues.