Brawn GP kicks the season off with a 1-2 finish in Melbourne

The 2009 Formula One has officially started, as the first race took place earlier today, and wow, what a race it was. The Melbourne GP was an eventful one as it saw Jenson Button lead Brawn GP to a one-two finish.

The safety car was sent out just before the end of the race after Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica, who were fighting hard for second place, collided with each other leaving them unable to finish the race.

Vettel said he was sorry, while Kubica said that Vettel could have left him a bit more space.

After Vettel tried to finish the race with a broken car, he ignore the stewards requests to pull over, he was awarded a $50,000 fine and a 10 place grid penalty for the Malaysian Grand Prix, which is next week.

Trulli who finished third received a 25 second time penalty after overtaking Hamilton when the safety car was out. This left Trulli without both, the points as well as a podium finish.

Ferrari has a bad weekend as they started the season off with zero points. Kimi Raikkonen spun out into a concrete wall, while Felipe Massa’s F60 failed in the pits.

 

Race Classification

1	Jenson Button	Brawn-Mercedes	1:34:15.784
2	Rubens Barrichello	Brawn-Mercedes	+0.8 secs
3	Jarno Trulli*	Toyota	+1.6 secs
4	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	+2.9 secs
5	Timo Glock	Toyota	+4.4 secs
6	Fernando Alonso	Renault	+4.8 secs
7	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	+5.7 secs
8	Sebastien Buemi	STR-Ferrari	+6.0 secs
9	Sebastien Bourdais	STR-Ferrari	+6.2 secs
10	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	+6.3 secs
11	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	+7.0 secs
12	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Mercedes	+7.3 secs
13	Mark Webber	RBR-Renault	+1 Lap
14	Sebastian Vettel	RBR-Renault	+2 Laps
15	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	+3 Laps
16	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	+3 Laps
Ret	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+13 Laps
Ret	Nelsinho Piquet	Renault	Spin
Ret	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	Accident
Ret	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	Accident damage

* Trulli given 25 Second Penalty for overtaking under safety car