MOTOR SPORT SPANISH GRAND PRIXJENSON BUTTON stretched his remarkable run of victories to four in five races in Spain yesterday after a strategic switch allowed him to leapfrog early leader Rubens Barrichello in a largely processional race at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The Barcelona track, where drivers relentlessly pound out kilometres in winter testing, offers few surprises to any of the teams and with overtaking opportunities at a premium it often throws up races decided on the best use of fuel and tyres and so it proved as Button’s Brawn GP team switched the Englishman from their preferred three-stop strategy to what they believed to be a riskier two-stop run to keep the title leader in contention after team-mate Rubens Barrichello had got the jump on pole-winning Button at the start.

The choice was initially not one Button concurred with: “We were both going in the same direction, but they switched me to a two-stopper to cover all of our bases.

“Three-stop was the quicker strategy, we thought. I wasn’t sure about going to a two-stop and when I put the fuel on board it felt very, very heavy.”

Until that point Button had been trailing the slightly more heavily-fuelled Barrichello, the Brazilian having made a brilliant start to beat Button into turn one around the outside.

Prior to the start Brawn had identified the Red Bull Racing car of third on the grid Sebastian Vettel and the massively improved Ferrari of Felipe Massa, fourth, as their main rivals, particularly as Massa would be able to tap a significant power boost on the long run to turn one thanks to the KERS system fitted to his Ferrari.

That challenge, however, didn’t materialise. Massa started well, using his additional power to pass Vettel but once past, his pace was no match for the Brawns, while Vettel, lodged behind the Ferrari, could not make his greater pace count as, after a safety car period following a first-lap collision involving Adrian Sutil, Jarno Trulli and the Toro Rosso cars of Sébastien Bourdais and Sébastien Buemi, Massa used his KERS boost as a defensive weapon on the straights.

Barrichello was able to carve a gap back to Button but when the team altered their strategy the race shifted gear.

“The car was very heavy,” said Button of the start of his long second stint. “I didn’t think I’d come out ahead of even Massa and Vettel. But I did and from then on I just kept my head down and concentrated on putting the laps in and being as consistent as possible.”

The result was Button was enjoying a gap large enough to give Barrichello, who had to stop a third time, no hope of challenging for his first victory of the season, a result that left the Brazilian with a slightly bitter aftertaste.

“I had the race in my hands and I was quite surprised when they told me they were switching Jenson to two (stops),” Barrichello said afterwards. “I would like to understand why they changed that.

“I had a great start. I was running a tiny bit quicker than Jenson to begin with and I had two more laps of fuel. It was running quite well and then I heard that they’d changed Jenson’s strategy and I had to keep on pushing.”

Team boss Ross Brawn later suggested that leaving Barrichello on the three-stop strategy had been a security measure, to cover all eventualities but for the Brazilian driver it was all too reminiscent of the time he spent as Michael Schumacher’s deputy at Ferrari, five years during which he was consistently expected to cede to the German driver.

“I won’t follow any team orders any more,” Barrichello insisted when reminded of the restraints Ferrari had place on him. “I’m making it clear now so everyone knows.”

Button, however, insisted relations between the drivers and within the team were good. “We both work very closely together within the team, and it’s a very good atmosphere in the team. We are all here to win, and today it just went my way and it didn’t for him,” he said.

The remaining podium position was picked up by Red Bull Racing’s Mark Webber, himself the beneficiary of another strategic switch. With Vettel boxed in behind Massa, Webber was put on a very long second stint, which allowed him, in his final stop, to get out ahead of both his team-mate and Massa to claim third behind Barrichello.

Fourth should have fallen to Massa but hurrying to keep him ahead of the charging Vettel in their final simultaneous stops, Ferrari put too little fuel in the Brazilian’s car and in the closing laps he was forced to slow dramatically. Vettel swept past to take fourth and on the final lap Fernando Alonso too went by to demote Massa to a disappointing sixth.

It was once again a weekend to forget for Ferrari, with Kimi Raikkonen grinding to a halt with mechanical problems after just 17 laps.