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Brawn GP’s Rubens Barrichello won the Italian Grand Prix in Monza this afternoon to score his second victory of the season and his eleventh Formula One win. Team-mate Jenson Button came home in second position in his Brawn-Mercedes car to complete a fantastic weekend which sees the team’s eighth victory and fourth one-two finish of the 2009 season.
After a strong qualifying performance on Saturday, Rubens and Jenson began the race from fifth and sixth positions respectively with heavy fuel loads for a one-stop strategy. Rubens started on the harder prime tyre with Jenson favouring the softer option. Both drivers had excellent first laps to pass Heikki Kovalainen and get into position behind the two-stopping cars ahead of them.
With aggressive lap times, the pair were able to maintain the gap to the front-runners prior to their pit stops, on lap 28 for Jenson and lap 29 for Rubens, before jumping the three two-stopping cars at their second stops. Rubens crossed the line after 53 laps to take the flag just over 2.8 seconds ahead of Jenson.
Brawn GP leads the Constructors’ Championship with 146 points, 40.5 points ahead of second place, with Jenson leading the Drivers’ Championship with 80 points and Rubens in second place with 66 points.
RUBENS BARRICHELLO
“Monza has always been a great track for me and it feels just wonderful to win here again. We made some great decisions this weekend and the work that we achieved on Friday was the key to setting up the result today. We had to think strategically in qualifying because of the KERS cars and our one-stop strategy really paid off. I had a great start to get ahead of Heikki and from there I had the pace that we needed to beat the two-stopping cars who started ahead of us. I want to say a huge thank you to everyone at the factory, here at the track and at Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines in Brixworth for designing, building and developing such a great car and engine. I’m driving a fantastic car with a fantastic Mercedes-Benz engine and the team is doing a fantastic job! It’s going to be a good and healthy fight for the championship over the next few races and I’m really looking forward to that. Two wins in three races is pretty good going and I’ll be giving it my all. And finally I would like to dedicate this win to my two sons Eduardo and Fernando who both had their birthdays this month.”
JENSON BUTTON
“I had a really good race today and it’s a fantastic feeling to be up on the podium again. The team and Rubens did a great job this weekend and congratulations to Rubens for his second win of the season. The car worked very well all weekend and the balance was good throughout the race which meant I could set consistently quick lap times when it really mattered. The strategy that we chose on Saturday for qualifying was the perfect one for us and I was able to get ahead of Heikki on the first lap which was absolutely crucial for my race. Lewis was pushing hard behind me for the final part of the race but I was confident that I had him covered and it’s a very difficult circuit to overtake here even with KERS. We have shown that the Brawn-Mercedes is a very good car and credit to the team for the efforts that have gone into improving it over the past couple of months. It’s going to be a very exciting end of the season and a challenge that we are all looking forward to.”
ROSS BRAWN
“We are all delighted with our result this weekend after two very strong drives from Rubens and Jenson to achieve our fourth one-two finish of the season. We have a lot of very talented people at the team who have made this result possible and I am very pleased with how our race weekend here in Monza was planned and operated. The car worked well in low-downforce and the Mercedes-Benz engine gave us the power required for this high-speed circuit. This weekend has been a great result for Brawn GP but the hard work is far from over. There are four crucial races coming up which will decide the championship battle and we will be back at the factory in Brackley tomorrow and looking ahead to the next challenge in Singapore.”
