2009 Singapore Grand Prix

So, the two Brawns of Rubens Barichello and championship-leader Jenson Button are quite a few points in front of blog favorite Sebastian Vettel and his Red Bull teammate Mark Webber.

So, in qualifying for this race, Jenson Button didn't make it into the third session of qualifying, so he's somewhere down in 12th or so on the grid. Vettel is 2nd, and Webber 4th. The final person who still has a chance to win the championship, Barichello, crashed near the end of qualifying, and brought the session to an end, while he was in fifth. However, since he had to change his gearbox ahead of schedule, he took a 5 grid-spot penalty down to 10th. But then there was some sort of penalty to another car bumped him up to 9th. I still don't understand how he could still line up in his grid position since he crashed heavily, and pretty much demolished his car.

So, this might be an interesting race due to the championship. But, since its a street circuit, and thus very narrow, there might not be a lot of over-taking, but lets see...

Kind of a poopy start for Vettel. 3rd into the first few corners, and held off an attack from Alonso's Renault. You might remember Alonso as a general, all-around cockbag, and the controversial winner of last year's race here. And by controversial, I mean that his teammate (the ever so useless Nelson Piquet Jr.) crashed on purpose at a specific time to the benefit his teammate.

After a few laps, Vettel still in 3rd, Webber in 4th, Barichello in 7th, and Button out of the points in 10th.

And Nico Rosberg crossed a line he shouldn't have on the pit exit, so he has to serve a drive through penalty right before a safety car period due to Adrian Sutil running into Nick Heidfeld. Nick Heidfeld who had the longest running streak of consecutive race finishes (brought to an end through no fault of his own), and who is also a much loved driver in this household, due to his bearded German-ness.

Standings of those we care about immediately after the safety car period:
Rosberg 2
Vettel 3
Bareichello 6
Button 8th
Webber 9th
And remember that Rosberg still has to serve that drive through penatly. That'll fuck him pretty well, since he has only 3 laps to do it, and the field is really bunched up due to the safety car. Rejoined in 14th after the penalty. That fucked him proper good. Which bumps everyone up one spot.

And a definite boneheaded move by Torro Rosso rookie Jaime Algersuari: Started out of his pit area before anyone was ready, taking his fuel rig with him, and knocking over a couple of his pit crew. Shades of last year's race when Felipe Massa dragged the entire fuel rig down the pit lane after a malfunction in the lighting device telling when to go. No such excuse for Algersuari, as he almost ran down his lollipop guy.

Also, this circuit is really tight, with relatively few run-off areas. It has got to be downright terrifying do drive at any sort of speed.

Pretty good race in the middle for the lead between reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton and the ever so amazing Vettel.

And another thing I haven't mentioned is that Vettel is using his final new engine for the season. Each driver gets a grand total of 8 engines for the season. It didn't really help that Vettel lost 2 engines at Valencia earlier in the year.

And now a drive through for Vettel for speeding in the pits. Lets see how bad that screws him over... Comes out in 9th. But a bunch of people ahead of him still have pit stops to make. Vettel's good to go to the end. Although he ran wide and went over one of the kerbs, and damaged his diffuser. And if you remember the blog posts from the earlier part of the season, where there was a lot of discussion of the legality of the "double diffuser" on the Williams, Brawn, and Toyota cars. So, obviously, the diffuser is an important part of the aerodynamic package of the car.

And Webber just lost his brakes, and puts himself into the wall. Thus end his championship chances. And now they just pulled both Torro Rosso cars from the race. Both of which share a very similar chassis to the Red Bull chassis. In addition, both the Torro Rossos and the Red Bulls share the same brakes. So, what does that spell for Vettel's race, and more importantly his brakes? Who knows... I'll let you know.

OK, I'll admit. This race was actually a lot more exciting and nerve-wracking for Vettel fans than I originally would have thought. Vettel's into 4th, with Button in 5th and Barrichello in 6th.

And apparently after losing pieces of his diffuser and his rear-view mirror, Vettel still seems to be on pace.

Also, Jenson Button sounds completely hilarious on the radio.

And despite my urgings, neither of the Brawns seem to be running into each other, or putting themselves into a wall. I'm sad...

And now Button seems to be having some brake issues as well... Hopefully that should mean that he won't be able to push Vettel as much... And since this is F1, it's push. It'd be poosh if it were in MotoGP.

Sadly it looks like we won't be seeing Kimi on the podium this race. With 2 laps to go, he's in 10th. That is a shame, as he is a fantastic podium-interviewee.

So, Vettel is no 25 points behind Button in the Championship, with 3 races (a total of 30 possible points) left to win. Barichello is 15 points behind Button (and thus 10 points ahead of Vettel). Webber now has no chance, as he is 32.5 points adrift.