Button becomes World Champion

After nearly ten years in Formula 1 British driver Jenson Button has become Formula 1 World Champion. The Briton secured the title with one race to spare at the Brazilian Grand Prix putting his final two title challengers, Rubens Barrichello and Sebastian Vettel out of the title hunt. The Brazilian Grand Prix was spectacular all weekend. In qualifying on Saturday torrential rain meant that the second part of qualifying had to be delayed for almost an hour due to too much standing water on the track resulting in it being unsafe to drive on. When it finally restarted Button got caught out on the wrong tires and only managed to qualify in 14th place, one place behind Vettel. Button was quoted as saying that he “had no rear grip” which led to him sliding down the lap chart. Barrichello went on to take pole for his home grand prix and in doing so making the prospect of the championship going to the final grand prix in Abu Dhabi all the more possible. Thankfully the rain had subsided come race day, but that didn’t mean the race was going to be any less dramatic! On lap 1 at the second corner Vettel and McLaren driver Heikki Kovalainen tangled sending Kovalainen spinning, a few corners later Jarno Trulli collided with Adrian Sutil which resulted in Trulli spinning into the wall and Sutil spinning into double world champion Fernando Alonso. The three drivers were out. Trulli made his feelings clear about the incident to Sutil and confronted him which he later got a $10,000 fine for. In the pit lane Kovalainen brought a damaged car into the pits ahead of Kimi Raikkonen who had come in with a damaged front wing. As Kovalainen left he dragged the refuelling line with him and sprayed fuel all over Raikkonen’s Ferrari which dramatically caught fire for a few seconds, both cars were able to continue. By the end of the first lap Button had managed to go from 14th to 9th and at this point the safety car came out to allow the clean up of the first lap crash. After it came in on lap 6 Button set about charging through the field in pursuit of his teammate Barrichello and at the halfway point he was well inside the points in 5th place. From this point on the championship was looking like a real possibility as Barrichello had slipped down to third during the first round of pit stops. On lap 60 Buttons prayers were answered as Barrichello was forced to make an extra pit stop because of a puncture. At this point all Button had to do was bring the car home and the championship would be his. Mark Webber went on to win the second race of his career but the man of the hour was Jenson Button who became a world champion for the first time in his 9th season of F1. What was particularly poignant about it was after a few terrible years in Formula 1 many people said the Button had missed his chance to win a world title, even after winning his first race at the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix a lot of pundits said it would still never happen. Button’s team Brawn GP win the Constructors Championship also in their first season in Formula1. After only securing financial backing a few months before the season started the team rose out of the ashes of the Honda team and stormed through the year with some impressive results finishing first and second in their first Grand Prix! A stressful year became clear when an emotional Ross Brawn (Team Owner) shed a few tears in a post race interview at the Brazilian Grand Prix. It’s looking increasingly more likely that Button will sign with Brawn GP again for 2010 so don’t count him out on another world championship!