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.
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