Another win for Button

Jenson Button has taken victory in the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya - the Englishman's fourth win in five races.

Brawn GP dominate once again

Jenson Button has taken victory in the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya - the Englishman's fourth win in five races. Button led home team-mate Rubens Barrichello after a race which demonstrated that Brawn GP's rivals still have much work to do in order to match the early-season pacesetters. Red Bull's Mark Webber finished third ahead of team-mate Sebastian Vettel, while Renault's Fernando Alonso finished fifth. Ferrari's Felipe Massa came home sixth, with BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld and Williams' Nico Rosberg claiming the final points-paying positions. Lewis Hamilton finished ninth, the world champion being lapped by the race winner on Button's penultimate lap. Both Brawn cars were originally supposed to stop three times but the team then decided to place Button on a two-stopper. Barrichello therefore held a lead of over 13 seconds at one stage before eventually ceding ground to Button. The latter pulled a qualifying lap from nowhere to take pole position on Saturday but it was Barrichello who made the better start from third on the grid, the Brazilian sweeping around the outside of Button to take the lead into turn one. Meanwhile, Massa made use of his car's KERS system to pass Vettel and take third place.

Chaos

However, there was chaos further back in the pack with two collisions at turn three: firstly, Toyota's Jarno Trulli - who had made a slow start - and Force India's Adrian Sutil, who respectively ran wide right and left coming through the preceding corner, collided. Then, seemingly in an effort to avoid that incident, the Toro Rossos of Sebastien Buemi and Sebastien Bourdais took each other out. The safety car came out while the track was cleared of debris and, once racing resumed on lap six, Barrichello led Button, Massa, Vettel and Webber - the second Red Bull almost forcing Alonso on to the grass on the pit straight whilst defending fifth place. Barrichello and Button pulled out a comfortable gap over Massa during the first stint before Button stopped on lap 18 - one lap before Barrichello. The team said they switched him to a two stopper in order to give him clean air behind Rosberg, who climbed as high as second during a long first stint. Because Button had taken on significantly more fuel, Barrichello was able to increase his lead and to make the strategy work he needed to pull significantly clear. Putting in times as much as a second a lap quicker, Barrichello held a 13.7-second lead over Button by the time he made his second stop at the end of lap 30. Barrichello rejoined in fourth place - but tyre problems meant he now started struggling for pace compared with his team-mate. But neither was race leader Button pulling clear of Massa and Vettel. Indeed, the second and third-placed cars started closing prior to their second stops, which both came at the end of lap 43. Both the Ferrari and the Red Bull were fitted with harder tyres and they soon fell off the pace of the Brawns. Button also went on to harder tyres when making his second stop at the end of lap 48, but his car coped with them better. Barrichello held the lead again prior to his third stop on lap 50 but, given the loss of pace suffered by both Massa and Vettel, he was able to rejoin in second place. Webber was also able to take advantage after falling down to seventh place at his opening stop - the Australian needing time to adjust to balance on his car. He proceeded to run a longer second stint and, having climbed up to second place during the second pit stop window, only lost a place to Barrichello when the order resettled.

Mistake

Massa was running fourth but lost ground in the closing stages after he was mistakenly short-fuelled at his final stop. Having to economise in order to reach the chequered flag, the Brazilian handed the place to Vettel with four laps remaining before losing another place to Alonso on the final lap. Despite losing the use of his KERS system, Massa's team-mate Kimi Raikkonen climbed from 16th on the grid to 10th at the start but nevertheless retired on lap 18 with a hydraulic problem. Fellow Finn Heikki Kovalainen was also on the receiving end of mechanical misfortune, the McLaren driver pulling into the pitlane on lap nine having suffered gearbox failure. Team-mate Hamilton, meanwhile, fell a place to 15th on the opening lap after taking to the grass at the lights to avoid Nelson Piquet's Renault - itself avoiding Trulli's car. He climbed as high as sixth in his opening stint but spent most of the afternoon circulating just outside the points. Having complained over the radio that his rear tyres were "gone", Hamilton spent the closing laps fending off Toyota's Timo Glock. Button now leads the drivers' championship with 41 points to Barrichello's 27, while Brawn GP's lead over Red Bull in the constructors' battle stands at 29.5 points. Spanish Grand Prix, result: 1 Jenson Button (Gbr) Brawn GP 1hr 37mins 19.202secs, 2 Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Brawn GP 1:37:32.258, 3 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1:37:33.126, 4 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1:37:38.143, 5 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault 1:38:02.368, 6 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:38:10.029, 7 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 1:38:11.514, 8 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams 1:38:24.413, 9 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) McLaren at 1 Lap, 10 Timo Glock (Ger) Toyota at 1 Lap, 11 Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber at 1 Lap, 12 Nelson Piquet Jr (Bra) Renault at 1 Lap, 13 Kazuki Nakajima (Jpn) Williams at 1 Lap, 14 Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Force India at 1 Lap
Not Classified: 15 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 17 Laps completed, 16 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren 7 Laps completed, 17 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota 0 Laps completed, 18 Sebastien Buemi (Swi) Scuderia Toro Rosso 0 Laps completed, 19 Sebastien Bourdais (Fra) Scuderia Toro Rosso 0 Laps completed, 20 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India 0 Laps completed Drivers' championship: 1 Jenson Button (Gbr) Brawn GP 41pts, 2 Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Brawn GP 27, 3 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 23, 4 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 15.5, 5 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota 14.5, 6 Timo Glock (Ger) Toyota 12, 7 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) McLaren 9, 8 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault 9, 9 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 6, 10 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams 4.5, 11 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren 4, 12 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 3, 13 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 3, 14 Sebastien Buemi (Swi) Scuderia Toro Rosso 3, 15 Sebastien Bourdais (Fra) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1, 16 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India 0, 17 Nelson Piquet Jr. (Bra) Renault 0, 18 Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber 0, 19 Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Force India 0, 20 Kazuki Nakajima (Jpn) Williams 0
Constructors' championship: 1 Brawn GP 68pts, 2 Red Bull 38.5, 3 Toyota 26.5, 4 McLaren 13, 5 Renault 9, 6 BMW Sauber 6, 7 Ferrari 6, 8 Williams 4.5, 9 Scuderia Toro Rosso 4, 10 Force India 0