Motor Sport / Vin Lowe / 14 September 2009 / Leave a comment Bet Now

The Brawn team has done it again with yet another one-two podium finish. Their one-stop strategy paid off perfectly, with Rubens Barrichello taking another well-deserved win and Jenson Button second - his first podium in six races. This reduces his championship lead over Barrichello to only fourteen points and tightens up the competition for the last four races of the season, writes Marissa van Uden.

Lewis Hamilton pushed his car to its limit right up until the end and put in his fastest first-sector time on the final lap, just before he lost the car into a wall. This left the way open for Räikkönen to take the third spot on the podium.

Adrian Sutil in a Force India scored his first-ever Formula One points with fourth. He harried Räikkönen throughout the race and could have been on the podium if not for Räikkönen's KERS advantage in defending. Along with a small mistake coming into the pits, which knocked over one of his mechanics, this could be all that prevented Sutil being on the podium. He had a strong drive and, with new car upgrades, will be challenging the frontrunners again at the Singapore Grand Prix. Vitantonio Luizzi's Force India also had the pace, but he retired after a transmission failure.

Fernando Alonso was fifth, followed by Heikki Kovalainen. Kovalainen had been tipped to win with the best strategy on the grid, but he lacked the pace of the other McLaren and came in sixth. Nick Heidfeld's BMW was seventh and - thanks to Hamilton's crash on the final lap - Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull was eighth.

Mark Webber's Red Bull dropped out of the race after an early crash with Robert Kubica, destroying his chance at the driver's championship. Kubica ended up with a broken front wing and was called in by race control for safety reasons, and then later retired due to an oil leak. This was a bad weekend all round for Kubica after both BMW's new engines failed in the middle of qualifying on Saturday.

Giancarlo Fisichella, driving in his dream-seat for Ferrari, missed out on points but put in a good drive and finished ninth from fourteenth on the grid. Kazuki Nakajima finished tenth, followed by Timo Glock who must have had the Toyota team on the edges of their seats as he and team mate Jarno Trulli (fourteenth) enjoyed themselves with some aggressive mid-field battles. Hamilton classified twelfth and Sebastian Buemi was thirteenth, followed by Jarno Truli, Romain Grosjean, and Nico Rosberg in sixteenth. Jaime Alguersuari had a gearbox problem and was the fourth retiree.