Jenoson Button and then Red Bull Racing dominated the opening half of this year’s Championship, winning nine consecutive races before Hungary saw McLaren come to the fore.
Defending world champion Lewis Hamilton clinched the victory ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen while Red Bull just made the podium with Mark Webber in third place.
The revised order at the front of the pack has added some excitement to proceedings ahead of Valencia, with Button claiming it could prove to be an “interesting” race weekend. SkySports
With reigning champion Hamilton now in the hunt for more wins, it is likely to be harder for Australia’s Webber to make substantial gains on Button in each of the remaining seven rounds.
Button needs to respond to the growing challenge from Webber by ending a run of three disappointing performances with a return to the podium.
Despite the setbacks Button remains positive. He said: “ I think we have just maybe gone slightly in the wrong direction. But we will pick up our pace, for sure. We need to be on the podium as often as possible. But it is very, very competitive now. Auto Racing Daily
Webber’s Red Bull team are currently second in the constructors championship behind Brawn GP while the Australian holds second place behind leader Jenson Button in the drivers’ title race with 51.5 points to the Englishman’s 70.
“We are still up there. We haven’t been blown away by any means. We are in the hunt, and we can take our car to a lot of venues and be competitive,” says Webber. AFP
Pos Driver Team Points 1 Jenson Button Brawn-Mercedes 70 2 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 51.5 3 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 47 4 Rubens Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes 44 5 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 25.5 6 Jarno Trulli Toyota 22.5 7 Felipe Massa Ferrari 22 8 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes19 9 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 18 10 Timo Glock Toyota 16 11 Fernando Alonso Renault 13 12 Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes9 13 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 6 14 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 3 15 Robert Kubica BMW Sauber 2 16 Sebastien Bourdais STR-Ferrari 2 17 Giancarlo Fisichella Force India-Mercedes 0 18 Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota 0 19 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 0 20 Nelsinho Piquet Renault 0 21 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 0
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