Jenson Button clinched his first Formula One drivers’ title with a fifth-place finish at the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday and his Brawn GP team made history by becoming the first to take the constructors’ crown in their debut season.
“This race was the best race I’ve driven in my life,” Button said. “I knew I had to make it happen.”
He was ecstatic at the finish, singing Queen’s We Are The Champions over the team radio as he crossed the line.
PHOTO: EPA
Red Bull’s Mark Webber claimed only his second Grand Prix win ahead of Robert Kubica of BMW Sauber and defending champion Lewis Hamilton of McLaren.
Home-crowd favorite Rubens Barrichello — Button’s Brawn GP teammate and his closest rival at the start of the race — began from pole but finished only eighth after a puncture, while Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel couldn’t place higher than fourth after starting well down the grid.
Fifth-place was good enough to give Button an insurmountable 15-point lead over Vettel in the drivers’ standings ahead of the season-ending race in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 1.
Button’s triumph gives Britain back-to-back F1 titles for the first time since Graham Hill won in 1968 and Jackie Stewart in 1969.
Hamilton won last year, also clinching at the Brazilian GP.
“I am the world champion. I’m going to keep saying it all night,” the 29-year-old Button said. “I’m going to enjoy this moment like you wouldn’t believe. I’m sitting here as the world champion and that’s something you cannot take away.”
In his 10th year in Formula One, Button had a historic start to the season by winning six of the first seven races, then was consistent enough the rest of the year to arrive in Brazil with a comfortable lead.
It was a fairytale finish for the Brawn GP team, who came to Interlagos with a commanding lead in the constructors’ standings, needing only half a point to clinch the title.
The team was created only a few weeks before the start of the season using the infrastructure of the former Honda team, after the Japanese carmaker decided to withdraw from the sport because of the global recession — a decision it may now be regretting.
Button started only 14th after a poor qualifying performance in heavy rain on Saturday, but he drove aggressively from the start to quickly move up the grid.
All three title contenders got away cleanly, but the safety car was brought out before the first lap was over after a crash between Toyota’s Jarno Trulli and Force India’s Adrian Sutil. Trulli immediately confronted Sutil after the incident.
Button was up to ninth place after the safety car left the track on the third lap, and then he made bold passes to overtake the Renault of Romain Grosjean and the Williams of Kazuki Nakajima to move to seventh.
McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen had a disastrous pit-stop when he drove off with his refueling hose still attached, spilling fuel along the pit lane. Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari then ignited the spilled fuel after he pitted to changed his front wing and a fireball briefly enveloped his car, but fortunately he was able to continue.
McLaren were fined US$50,000 on Sunday for the incident.
Kovalainen was also handed a 25-second penalty, to be added retrospectively to his race time, for an unsafe release in which he trailed the fuel hose behind his car.
The stewards also fined Italian Trulli US$10,000 and reprimanded him for confronting Sutil.
They concluded that the collision itself was a racing incident with no further action required.
Barrichello, starting from pole, led for the first part of the race but dropped out of contention after the first round of pit stops. He began the race with a lighter fuel load and the strategy proved costly. Nevertheless, he looked set for a podium finish until a puncture after touching wheels with McLaren forced him into another pit stop, frustrating the nearly 70,000 Brazilian fans who packed the Interlagos circuit.
Defending champion Hamilton finished third after starting from 18th on the grid.
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