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In the words of second place finisher Mark Webber, Jenson Button was “on another planet” today as he stormed to another crushing victory in the Turkish Grand Prix.

Starting in second place on the dusty side of the track, Jenson stayed behind pole sitter Sebastian Vettel through the first lap until turn 9 when Vettel ran wide.  That was all the opportunity Button needed to take the lead and from then on he drove a perfect race.

Sebastian Vettel managed to close in on Button in his second stint but couldn’t get past and Red Bull’s choice to keep him on a two stop strategy saw team mate Mark Webber pass him during his second pit stop.

Rubens Barrichello had a bad start losing 10 places off the grid due to a clutch problem.  His day went from bad to worse when, after a great battle with Heikki Kovalainen and several attempts at putting his car in places it wouldn’t fit, he retired on lap 47 with a gearbox problem – the first Brawn retirement of the season.

Despite finishing 13th, a smiling Lewis Hamilton “thoroughly enjoyed the race”:

It was quite an uneventful race but I actually enjoyed myself this afternoon.  I was very heavy at the start but I just pushed and pushed.  That’s why I can smile – because I think I drove to my full potential.  The most important thing is for us to keep our heads up and to keep pushing.

There has been a big change in Hamilton’s attitude since the beginning of the season.  After the controversy of Australia, Lewis’s post race interviews were monosyllabic and he looked very unhappy with himself and his team.  Now,  he seems to be enjoying racing again.  It is as if Button and Hamilton have switched positions this year.  Last year it was Jenson that was always putting a positive spin on his team’s terrible performance.

Now that Lewis has given up all hope of retaining the Championship he can relax and concentrate on developing and getting the most out of his car.

2009 Turkish Grand Prix Race Results

Image: Brawn GP

Jenson Button has joined the ranks of Jackie Stewart, Nigel Mansell and Michael Schumacher by winning five out of the first six Grands Prix of the season when he drove to a flawless victory in Monaco on Sunday.

Even KERS couldn’t help Kimi Raikkonen to match the pace of the Brawn GP cars off the start and he dropped back to third behind Rubens Barrichello.

Ferrari must be encouraged by Kimi Raikkonen’s third place finish and Felipe Massa’s fourth, considering their woeful start to the season.  It gives them a nice haul of points and puts them fourth in the Constructors Championship.

Raikkonen might be happy for the team but he was disappointed not to finish higher:

Of course in the bigger picture I’m not happy with third place – I’m disappointed.  But, in this situation, for the team it’s a good result.

Despite the gains made by Ferrari the Brawn GP car just looks unstoppable now.  There doesn’t seem to be a circuit it is not suited to and Jenson Button’s driving is impressing even Ross Brawn:

I’m lost for words with him really. He’s exceeding everything I thought possible.

Button’s lead in the Drivers’ Championship is now 16 points over team mate Rubens Barrichello and 28 over Sebastian Vettel in third place.  Brawn GP lead the Constructor’s Championship by a massive 43.5 points, with more than twice as many points as Red Bull has in second place.

2009 Monaco Grand Prix Race Results

Image: David Keen

In an unusually eventful Spanish Grand Prix, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello continued the domination of Brawn GP with another 1-2 finish.

Despite starting from the second row of the grid, Barrichello had a great start and passed both Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button to take the lead into the first corner.  Meanwhile, Nico Rosberg squeezed Jarno Trulli off the track causing the Italian to lose control and plough into the Force India of Adrian Sutil.  As carbon fibre scattered across the track, the two Toro Rossos had a coming together and by the end of the first lap the safety-car was out and all four drivers had retired.

When the safety-car came in, Fernando Alonso performed a spectular KERS-powered overtaking move on Mark Webber, only for the Australian to take the place back with an equally spectacular lunge up the inside.  Webber went on to finish third, ahead of team mate Sebastien Vettel who for most of the race couldn’t get past the KERS-powered Ferrari of Felipe Massa.

Vettel:

I was stuck behind him [Massa] for almost all of the race.  He was impossible to pass, he did a very good job with no mistakes.  It’s obviously disappointing as my car was quick today, but I couldn’t finish on the podium.

Massa eventually slipped back to 6th after a refuelling problem left him with one lap less fuel than he needed to finish the race, forcing him to slow down to conserve fuel:

We had a problem with the [refuelling] machine.  But I don’t know if the problem was human or the machine.  We need to analyse what was the problem.

It was very frustrating. You fight the whole race and then you have to back off.  I was already saving fuel in the last run, but it was not enough, so I had to really back off and let Vettel go.  I lost a position to Fernando and almost to Nick, so it was quite frustrating.

Jenson Button has now won four out of five Grands Prix and both Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa seem to have written off challenging for the Championship this year.  Massa said:

We need to be realistic. After five races they won four. Even if we improve massively and we are three or four tenths in front of them they will still score points. So forget it.

Hamilton was clearly not happy with his car, telling the BBC after the race:

It’s just a shame they haven’t given me a car to defend the championship with.  The car is that bad.  I’m driving the socks off it.  There’s just no hope.

2009 Spanish Grand Prix Race Results

Image: Getty

Jenson Button claimed his third victory of the season in Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix and increased his lead in the World Drivers’ Championship to 12 points.

Toyota had qualified on the front row of the grid and Jarno Trulli was hoping to score the first win for the Japanese team but a poor start and bad tyre choices saw him finish third behind Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel.  Whereas Button and Vettel went for a super soft – super soft – medium strategy, Trulli spent a long middle stint on the slower medium tyres.

After the race, Trulli seemed somewhat deflated and it wasn’t just the 50 degree temperature:

I am a little bit disappointed because I was waiting for the first win for Toyota.

During the second stint we used a very long stint on the hard tyres, so I was trying to fight and it was really hard fighting with a lot of cars. I was not extremely quick.

Lewis Hamilton had a great start and was “delighted” with his fourth place finish – his best of the season.

Kimi Raikkonen, under the stern gaze of Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo, managed a measly three points to save the Scuderia the dishonour of their worst start to an F1 season ever but poor Felipe Massa finished in 14th, a lap down and battling with the Force India of Fisichella.

Although he won by 7 seconds, Button said it was a tough race:

Our car is competitive but it’s still not easy to drive and that’s something that we need to work on because I had a lot of moments during the race where I was wide, locked up rears or fronts.

Jenson is clearly worried that the early advantage Brawn GP has had is starting to be clawed back by teams like McLaren.  The Spanish Grand Prix in two weeks’ time will see most teams bring updated cars including new double-diffusers for Ferrari and BMW but with almost twice as many points as their nearest rival Brawn GP don’t have too much to worry about yet.

2009 Bahrain Grand Prix Race Results

Jenson Button has won his second Grand Prix in a row for Brawn GP in a race that was halted due to rain.  Despite having to replace his front wing because the team left it out overnight in the rain, Jenson’s car once again proved its worth on a new circuit in difficult conditions.  Nico Rosberg got the better of Button off the starting line but Jenson regained the lead a couple of laps before his first pit stop and was still leading on lap 32 when the red flags came out.  The final positions were taken from the leader’s last full lap (31) which meant that  Nick Heidfeld took second place and Timo Glock was third.

Like Australia, the Malaysian Grand Prix had a late starting time of 5pm, to give it a better timeslot on the European TV schedules, but drivers had warned that visibility could be a problem, especially if it rained.  Sure enough, although the race started in dry conditions, the Sepang circuit was hit by a torrential downpour.  I am actually in Singapore at the moment and it seems we got the weather here first.  Around lunchtime we were hit by a thunderstorm of biblical proportions and anyone who was caught in that could tell you that there was no way racing could continue in those conditions. Lewis Hamilton said they were the worst he had ever driven in:

When the rain came down, it was impossible to drive. I was aquaplaning everywhere – these were the most dangerous conditions I’ve ever raced in.

In the end it was all about being on the right tyres at the right time.  Kimi Raikkonen took a gamble on full wets but was a couple of laps too early and destroyed his tyres.  Timo Glock, on the other hand, timed the switch to intermediates just right.

In hindsight it seems like it was a mistake to run the race so late and I suspect it will return to its normal time next year but at least the few laps we had were entertaining.  The Red Bulls were fast and there was a great battle between Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton.  In the end it was a bit of an anticlimax to what was shaping up to be a fantastic race and because it was red flagged on lap 32 only half-points were awarded.

Unfortunately, the politics are not over.  The FIA haven’t ruled out further action against McLaren and Hamilton and BMW at last managed to get their diffuser protest in on time so they can join in the fun at the FIA Court of Appeal on April 14.

2009 Malaysian Grand Prix Race Results