Button claims victory but feels Brawn are losing their edge

MOTOR SPORT BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX: JENSON BUTTON re-established his dominance of this season's Formula One drivers' championship, with a third win in four races in Bahrain yesterday, then admitted it had been the toughest so far and that his team is losing its edge.

While victory in the opening round in Australia had been achieved with relative ease, and he had dominated in Malaysia until torrential rain cut the race short, Button’s Bahrain win was a mix of risk-taking in the early stages and strategic good fortune in the second half of a race defined by fuel and tyre tactics.

“This win was the best of the lot,” said a visibly-drained Button after 57 punishing laps of a Sakhir circuit baking in temperatures nudging towards 40 degrees. “We didn’t have that competitive edge here. It is the fourth flyaway, we have a lot of bits that need to be changed and which are getting a bit aged, so to come away from this race is great and we are now looking at improving the car.”

The Brawn GP driver had only qualified fourth on Saturday, with the Toyotas of pole-sitter Jarno Trulli and team-mate Timo Glock locking out the front row, with China winner Sebastian Vettel in third. After the grid shoot-out Button had lamented his team’s lack of pace and admitted things were not looking as clear-cut as they had in the opening rounds.

“We struggled, and compared to the whole field we don’t have the pace we did in the first few races,” he said after qualifying.

And at the start yesterday it appeared that was the case. As the lights went out, Button was blasted aside by a reinvigorated Lewis Hamilton, who had dragged his McLaren to fifth on the grid. Ahead, Trulli was passed for the lead by Glock while Vettel got sucked into a vortex of cars featuring Button and the charging Hamilton, having to cede ground and slip down the order.

With Glock and Trulli spearing away in their lighter-fuelled Toyotas, Button found himself boxed in behind the slower but Kers-assisted McLaren. While the Brawn driver could close in the slow corners, the power boost available to Hamilton allowed him to keep Button at bay on the straights. If there was to be any chance of keeping in touch with the Toyotas, Button would have to get past.

It didn’t take long. As the pair crossed the line at the start of the second lap Button made his risky move. “He (Hamilton) is very difficult to overtake, but on the first lap he made a few mistakes. I dived down the inside and on the straight I thought I could get alongside him,” said Button. “I did, but he pushed his (Kers) button and got ahead, but I got him into the first corner. That move made the race for us.”

From there, Button was able to shadow the leading Toyotas through the opening phase, confident both would be stopping earlier. Glock made his dive for fuel and tyres on lap 11 with Trulli stopping two laps later. Both took on the harder, medium-specification Bridgestone, aiming to make them work over a long middle stint of a two-stop strategy. The decision shaped the remainder of the race.

With a clear track ahead Button was able to shave time from Trulli’s pre-stop advantage, and then, when he pitted on lap 16 and took on the more effective soft tyre, the Brawn driver was able to capitalise further.

So much so, when on-track leader Kimi Raikkonen dived in for his first stop on lap 22, Button retook the lead with a 7.5-second lead over Trulli who was struggling on the slower medium tyre.

The lack of pace, though, was hampering Vettel’s chances. The Red Bull Racing driver had clambered back to third, but though he too had taken the softer tyre, he could find no way past Trulli.

Vettel passed the Toyota during the pair’s second pit stops but the time lost chasing Trulli down in the middle stint left Vettel some 12 seconds adrift of Button. And, having by regulation to use the medium tyre in his final stint, Vettel late on found himself defending second from a charging Trulli, who had saved his soft tyre for his final run the flag.

Button now travels back to the European leg with an 11-point lead in the drivers’ title race over team-mate Rubens Barrichello, who finished fifth behind Hamilton. It is a lead Button believes is precarious.

“This was a tough race for us,” he insisted. “You might say I was leading for most of it, but this weekend we haven’t had the pace we had at the first few races, and I don’t know where it’s gone.”

But while Red Bull and Toyota may have closed the gap, the old guard are still struggling. Under the watchful gaze of company boss Luca Di Montezemolo, Ferrari took their first points of the season with sixth place for Kimi Raikkonen, but a disastrous afternoon for Felipe Massa, 14th and hampered by problems with his Kers system and telemetry, signalled the Italian team still has a long way to go to being competitive.

McLaren, too, made a jump forward, with Hamilton claiming five useful points with a solid fourth place. But with a season-defining meeting in front of the World Motor Sports Council on Wednesday, their championship still looks in the balance.