Jenson Button maintained his dream start to the 2009 season with his fourth win in five races after using a superior strategy to beat team-mate Rubens Barrichello in a Brawn-dominated Spanish Grand Prix.
Brazilian veteran Barrichello led the first stint of the race after catapulting past pole-sitter Button by the first corner and opened up a handy gap over the championship leader before his later opening stop.
But while Button, pitting for fuel one lap before his team-mate, opted to switch to a two-stopping race, Barrichello strangely stayed on a three-stopper – a move that would scupper his hopes of claiming his first victory since 2004.
The Brazilian couldn’t pull out enough of a gap during his short second stint and from there the momentum swung fully in Button’s favour, the Briton eventually beating his team-mate by 13s to increase his championship lead to 14 points.
With Brawn nevertheless in a class of its own, Red Bull’s Mark Webber recovered from a disappointing qualifying session to claim third after staying out in the middle stint longer on the faster soft-compound tyres.
That allowed him to vault past third and fourth placed men Felipe Massa (Ferrari) and Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), his RBR team-mate having spent a frustrating afternoon tucked up behind Massa.
Indeed Vettel followed Massa until the closing laps, only eventually getting past the Ferrari after a refuelling miscue left the Brazilian short on fuel by one lap.
It meant Massa had to cruise over the remaining laps, losing fifth place to home hero Fernando Alonso’s Renault.
When the lights went out all eyes were on the KERS-equipped Massa, but while he got away well and squeezed past the slow-starting Vettel for third, it was the two Brawns that vied for the lead.
Barrichello got the power down best and outdragged Button as they accelerated towards the first corner.
Behind the top half-dozen there was mayhem.
It was triggered when Jarno Trulli, battling with a slightly wayward Nico Rosberg, ran wide out of turn one and slid across the gravel.
As he rejoined the asphalt in turn two he slammed into Adrian Sutil’s Force India, and in the ensuing melee the Toro Rossos collided spectacularly and sent showers of carbon fibre debris flying.
Trulli, Sutil and the STRs were out on the spot and the safety car was deployed immediately.
From the restart on lap six, Barrichello quickly established a one-second cushion over Button, eking it out to 1.5s by lap 14.
Massa steadily lost touch, much to the frustration of the faster Red Bull drivers who were condemned to follow in his wheel tracks.
Already the race was playing perfectly into Brawn’s hands, and Barrichello – with the advantage in track position and one more lap of fuel on board than Button – seemed to have the upper hand.
Then came the strategic decision that would prove a game-changer – and inject some much-needed suspense into what was threatening to become a typically soporific Barcelona race.
Brawn’s original plan was for both its cars to make three pit stops, which its calculations suggested was the fastest way of covering the 66 laps given the need to minimise the time spent on the less favourable hard tyre.
However, realising that Button stood no chance of passing Barrichello in the first pit stop cycle, the Briton’s engineers opted to switch him onto the more orthodox two-stop routine, while Rubens was kept on a three-stopper.
After a shorter service Barrichello emerged with a much increased lead – but now faced the challenge of having to build enough of a margin to allow him to pit one more time than Button.
It was a big ask, and while Barrichello gave it his best shot, he was only able to stretch his lead to 13.5s before he had to pit for the second time on lap 31.
It wasn’t enough, and Barrichello rejoined in fourth place behind not only Button, but the Massa/Vettel battle that had remained deadlocked since the first stops.
The pendulum had swung decisively in Button’s favour, and Barrichello’s fading chances now rested on making his final stop substantially later than his team-mate, giving him a much shorter stint on the inferior hard tyres.
In the event, however, Button’s fuel load carried him all the way to lap 48, and Barrichello had to pit just two laps afterwards having struggled for pace throughout the stint on his final set of soft tyres. Game over.
Meanwhile Massa and Vettel had pitted together again on lap 43, several laps earlier than Brawn was expecting – removing the last threat to Button’s victory and giving Barrichello a safe passage to second place.
As a result of their early final stops, Massa and Vettel were leapfrogged by the late-stopping Webber, promoting the Australian to third place.
There was worse news for Massa, however, as he was soon being exhorted over the radio to save fuel, after it transpired that he had received less than the full complement at his stop due to a problem with the rig.
With Vettel still breathing down his neck, Massa was unable to save the amount necessary, and he was eventually told to let the Red Bull past with four laps to go or risk running dry.
In hindsight, the call should probably have come earlier, since despite drastically cutting his pace over the remaining laps, the numbers were still looking fraught heading into the final tour.
As the Ferrari stuttered round turn three, sixth-placed Alonso swept nonchalantly past on the outside, to the raucous cheers of the Barcelona crowd.
It was probably the most exciting moment of a relatively lonely race for the former champion – save for a heart-stopping wheel-to-wheel dice with Webber on the main straight immediately after the safety car pulled in, in which the Red Bull driver prevailed.
So Massa slumped to sixth, and only just held off the fast-closing BMW of Heidfeld, who used a long middle stint to beat the Williams of Rosberg.
Lewis Hamilton came home a frustrated ninth, after losing ground at the start and spending the whole race in fruitless midfield combat ruing the uncompetitiveness of his McLaren.
Timo Glock followed him across the line in 10th to complete a thoroughly forgettable afternoon for Toyota.
Spanish Grand Prix result (66 laps)
1. BUTTON Brawn
2. BARRICHELLO Brawn +13.0s
3. WEBBER Red Bull +13.9s
4. VETTEL Red Bull +18.9s
5. ALONSO Renault +43.1s
6. MASSA Ferrari +50.8s
7. HEIDFELD BMW +52.3s
8. ROSBERG Williams +65.2s
9. HAMILTON McLaren +1 lap
10. GLOCK Toyota +1 lap
11. KUBICA BMW +1 lap
12. PIQUET Renault +1 lap
13. NAKAJIMA Williams +1 lap
14. FISICHELLA Force India +1 lap
R. RAIKKONEN Ferrari +49 laps
R. KOVALAINEN McLaren +59 laps
R. TRULLI Toyota +66 laps
R. BUEMI Toro Rosso +66 laps
R. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso +66 laps
R. SUTIL Force India +66 laps
Fastest lap: BARRICHELLO 1m22.762s (lap 28)