Button stretches title lead with Bahrain victory

Britain's Jenson Button won the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday for the Formula One championship leader's third victory in four races with newcomers Brawn GP this season.

The 29-year-old's success at Sakhir dashed Toyota's hopes of a breakthrough first win after the Japanese manufacturer had started with both their cars on the front row for the first time.

Germany's Sebastian Vettel was second for Red Bull with Toyota's Italian Jarno Trulli finishing third from pole position. Button, with four career wins, now has 31 points to Brazilian team mate Rubens Barrichello's 19 and Vettel's 18.

Champions Ferrari finally opened their account with 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen finishing sixth for the Italian team's first points of the year.

McLaren's world champion Lewis Hamilton, whose team could receive a heavy punishment at a hearing in Paris on Wednesday for lying to stewards at the Australian season-opener, took fourth place after an aggressive start.

Barrichello was fifth, ahead of Raikkonen, with Toyota's Timo Glock seventh and Renault's double world champion Fernando Alonso taking the final point on a hot afternoon with air temperatures around 35 degrees Celsius.

Glock, lighter on fuel than his team mate, made the quicker start and led for the first 10 laps before pitting and handing over to Trulli.

Button led for the first time in the race on lap 13, allowing Vettel and then Raikkonen to take brief turns at the front when he pitted, but was clearly in control for the final third of the race.

"We're going back to Europe with some very good points. Let's do it again in Barcelona," Button, who had started fourth, said as he took the chequered flag and punched the air in jubilation.

The Spanish Grand prix is next on May 10. BMW-Sauber, who had hoped to be challenging for the title this season, had a dismal afternoon at the circuit that brought them their first pole position last year with Poland's Robert Kubica.

Both cars were lapped just after the halfway mark, with Kubica 18th and Germany's Nick Heidfeld the last finisher in 19th place at the chequered flag. Williams's Japanese driver Kazuki Nakajima was the sole retirement.

Brawn's Button grabs pole in Australian GP

Briton Jenson Button snared pole position just ahead of his teammate Rubens Barrichello as newcomers Brawn GP seized initial control of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Saturday.

Button, backed by just three days' testing with the Brawn team, hastily put together in the wake of a management buy-out of the Honda team, burnt off his rivals for his fourth career pole.

The 29-year-old, with just one victory in 153 GPs over nine seasons, has a marvellous chance for only his second GP triumph in Sunday's Melbourne race, with Barrichello looming as his chief threat for honours. It is the first time since 1970 that a new team has captured the pole in its first F1 race.

"It's fantastic. The team has really stuck together over a tough winter and they have produced a good car at the moment, and I feel they will make it even better," Button said.

Button swept around the Albert Street circuit in one minute, 26.202 seconds, ahead of Barrichello's best of 1:26.505.

Rising German star Sebastian Vettel was third quickest in his Red Bull in 1:26.830 in an eventful hour-long qualifying with world champion Lewis Hamilton a major casualty and now forced to start off on row eight of Sunday's grid.

The British star failed to come out of the McLaren garage for the second section of qualifying and was credited with the 15th position. Renault's two-time world champion Fernando Alonso will start off on the sixth row after his indistinguished 12th place.

World constructors champions Ferrari were also left behind in the slipstream of the two Brawns with Felipe Massa to come off the fourth row after his seventh and Kimi Raikkonen one row behind after his ninth.

Button is wary because the last time he had pole in Australia, in 2006, his Honda ended up limping home in 10th.

Hamilton takes the glory

Briton Lewis Hamilton became the youngest man to win the Formula One drivers' world championship on Sunday when he finished fifth in a dramatic rain-hit Brazilian Grand Prix only clinching the title on the final lap.

As well as being the youngest champion, Hamilton also became the first black Formula One title holder on a stirring afternoon in front of an impassioned 100,000 crowd at the Interlagos circuit.

Hamilton won from pole position, Massa started fourth, spun into a wall on the opening lap and then collided with David Coulthard just before the halfway point, retiring four laps later. Kubica collided with Japan's Kazuki Nakajima.

A year-long win drought to take the Singapore Grand Prix

Spain's Fernando Alonso snapped a year-long win drought to take the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday, winning a drama-filled first ever night race as a comical error cost Felipe Massa dearly.

It was the Renault driver's first victory since the Italian Grand Prix last year and capped a remarkable weekend that saw him top two of the free practice sessions but start 15th on the grid after a mechanical problem in qualifying.

He claimed his 20th career triumph by 2.95 seconds over Germany's Nico Rosberg in a Williams and Britain's world championship leader Lewis Hamilton in third.

Toyota driver Timo Glock was fourth with Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel following up his win in Italy this month with fifth. BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld took sixth.

Massa silences his critics with his win at Bahrain GP

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Brazilian Felipe Massa grabbed success in Manama on Sunday for his second successive victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix and answered his mounting bank of critics as his Ferrari team celebrated an easy one-two win with Kimi Raikkonen finishing second.

The 26-year-old Latin American, who was unsuccessful to score a point after an error-strewn performance in both opening races, came home as a comfortable winner ahead of his team-mate defending drivers world champion Finn Kimi Rakkkonen. This was enough for the BMW-Sauber team to lead the constructors' championship for the first time.

Massa clearly loves the 5.412 kms desert track in Sakhir as he repeated last year's triumph, dominating the 57-lap race after blasting off the grid to take the lead from BMW's Robert Kubica, the first Polish driver to start a grand prix from pole. He finishing track time is 1:31:06.970 with 2 Pit Stops.

It was Massa's sixth career win, whose future at Ferrari is by now the question of theory.