Button Storms to 6th Win in Turkey

Jenson Button is on his way to setting a new record in Formula One, after he clinched his 4th consecutive win of the season – and 6th after the first 7 rounds – during Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix, in Istanbul. The 29-year old Brit was unstoppable from lap one to the chequered flag, leaving nothing to chance on the Istanbul Otodrom.

Having started from the second spot on the grid, Button needed only a few turns to get into 1st place. Sebastian Vettel’s running wide mid-way through the first lap handed Button with the perfect opportunity to become race leader, and he didn’t need a second invitation. The duo drove away from the pack until the first pit stops, with Red Bull’s Mark Webber running into 3rd place.

Button’s teammate Rubens Barrichello had a start to forget, dropping from 3rd on the grid to 12th overall in a matter of meters. Turkish favorite (until this year, that is) Felipe Massa went into 4th, followed by Nico Rosberg and Kimi Raikkonen. Renault’s Alonso and BMW’s Robert Kubica completed the Top 8 in the first few laps.

Barrichello soon started to build his recovery strategy in the race, but it was McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen that he didn’t consider when setting it. After a few laps, the Brazilian – clearly the quicker car – tried to pass the McLaren driver, but Kova closed the door on him and led his BGP 001 into a spin. Barrichello dropped no less than 5 positions in the process.

While again trying to recover the lost positions – and passing Lewis Hamilton and Nelson Piquet until in 15th place – the Brawn GP driver felt out of patience when trying to overtake Force India’s Adrian Sutil on the last turn of the circuit and the two cars slightly touched, damaging the Brawn GP’s front wing. The Brazilian was therefore forced to pit earlier and practically kissed a good result in Turkey good bye. Later on, 10 laps to the finish line, he decided to call it a day and pitted into the Brawn garage.

Up front, however, Button led the race in a dominating matter, increasing his lead ahead of the Red Bull duo lap after lap. Vettel tried out a 3-stop strategy on Sunday, which eventually dropped him to 3rd overall, only seconds behind teammate Webber,

The frontrunners provided the fans with no action whatsoever during the one and a half hour of Sunday racing, as the top 3 positions didn’t change in the dying laps of the race. Jarno Trulli benefited from the Toyota pit strategy to power into 4th place, while followed by Rosberg and Massa.

BMW’s Robert Kubica scored another 2 points for BMW Sauber, while Toyota managed to see both its driver in points thanks to Timo Glock’s 8th place.

In the overall classification, Button is now 26 points ahead of closest rival & teammate Rubens Barrichello, followed by the two RBR drivers (Vettel on 29 points and Webber on 27.5 points). The Milton Keynes team managed to close the gap to championship leaders Brawn GP to less than 40 points, thanks to their extra 4 points on Sunday.