Rubens Barrichello finally ended his five-year Formula 1 win drought at the European Grand Prix after long-time race leader Lewis Hamilton’s hopes were dashed by a tyre mix-up at his final pit stop.
The Brazilian veteran, the most experienced driver in F1 history, drove flawlessly all afternoon and kept Hamilton and McLaren under sufficient pressure to force a mistake that would assure him of victory.
Polesitter Hamilton comfortably led the early stages of the Valencia street race, but Barrichello loomed large as a threat once he moved ahead of the second McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen at the first round of pit stops.
After a tense middle stint it was clear that the second stops would be decisive, but a second straight win still appeared to be within Hamilton’s grasp.
That was until the world champion arrived in his pit box to find that there were no fresh tyres waiting for him – an extraordinary oversight that McLaren later blamed on a late decision to bring him in.
The ensuing delay meant that Barrichello, already charging on the track in a bid to jump Hamilton on his own merits, was now only an error-free pit stop away from the lead – a final service his Brawn team duly completed without problems.
Barrichello likewise made no mistakes over the closing laps and finally secured an emotional 10th victory of his long and distinguished career – his first since taking the 2004 Chinese GP for Ferrari.
The win catapulted the 37-year-old back into the title fight after his championship-leading Jenson Button endured another difficult race to seventh position.
Barrichello re-established himself as the Briton’s nearest rival, 18 points adrift, after Red Bull endured a dismal race and failed to score.
McLaren’s front-row lock-out ended in a disappointing two-four finish after Kovalainen fell into the clutches of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen at the second round of stops.
Button again found himself hard-pressed to just score points after a tardy start dropped him from fifth to ninth, the Briton eventually salvaging two points for seventh.
The Englishman spent the majority of the race behind main title rival Mark Webber, but jumped him at the final pit stops after the Australian hit traffic on his in-lap.
Hamilton stamped his authority on the race at the start, powering away cleanly from pole position and establishing an immediate cushion over Kovalainen and the chasing pack.
The top three got away in grid order, but there was a major shuffle behind as Raikkonen used his KERS power to leap from sixth to fourth, while Button backed out of a tussle with Vettel at the first corner and lost more ground farther round the opening lap.
Moreover, he had stayed ahead of Webber only by short-cutting a chicane, and was ordered to yield eighth place to his title rival shortly afterwards.
Meanwhile leader Hamilton was on a tear, building a 5.2s gap over Kovalainen by lap eight and stretching the margin to 7.5s by the time he initiated the first round of pit stops on lap 16.
After stalking Kovalainen throughout the opening stint, Barrichello took full advantage of his extra three laps of fuel to turn up the wick and leapfrog the Finn’s McLaren at the first stops – and dramatically close his deficit to Hamilton.
When the pit stop cycle was complete, Hamilton had 3.2s in hand over Barrichello, with Kovalainen nearly five seconds back in third place and Raikkonen still fourth among the cars that had stopped.
Meanwhile Sebastian Vettel had suffered a major setback when his fuel rig failed and he had to pit a second time, dropping him to 16th place and costing him any realistic chance of a points finish.
Just to compound his misery, the brand new Renault engine that had been installed in his Red Bull following a Saturday morning blow-up let go on lap 24.
At the front Hamilton initially put some distance between himself and Barrichello, but the Brawn driver soon pegged the gap around the 4s mark.
With Barrichello again set to stop several laps later than Hamilton, the race was clearly extremely finely poised.
McLaren felt Hamilton’s cushion wasn’t large enough, and pushed his pit stop back by a lap to give him a chance to build a bigger margin.
But far from helping him, the switch only sowed confusion and led to the embarrassing situation that his tyres had not been removed from their blankets when he pulled in for service.
Lewis was stationary for an agonising 13.6s while the tyres were readied and then fitted – at least four seconds longer than might have been expected for a routine stop.
Whether the delay cost him the race will no doubt be hotly debated.
McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh was adamant it didn’t – that Hamilton needed a bigger lead in any case and that it was this slight shortfall in pace that triggered the operational miscue.
Perhaps. There’s no question that Barrichello was within striking distance, and had made up a surprising amount of ground using his extra laps before his first stop.
Nonetheless it was a clumsy own goal from the men on the McLaren pit wall, one that made life much easier for Barrichello and Brawn than it would otherwise have been.
With his first victory in nearly five years within his grasp, Rubens certainly didn’t need any extra motivation, and followed up his strong middle stint with some rapid laps immediately prior to his final stop.
He rejoined with a 6s advantage, and despite Hamilton’s best efforts that proved too much to surmount.
Barrichello duly reeled off the remaining 17 laps, allowing Hamilton to close to within 2.3s at the chequered flag before releasing all the frustrations of recent years in an outpouring of emotion over the team radio.
Raikkonen chased Kovalainen hard in the middle stint and some fast laps in the run-up to his pit stop were enough to vault him ahead of his Finnish countryman and into the final podium place.
Nico Rosberg finished just 0.8s behind Kovalainen in fifth after another strong and consistent race for Williams, extending his points-scoring streak to an impressive seven races.
Home hero Fernando Alonso was just a little off Rosberg’s pace and added to Renault’s meagre points tally with sixth ahead of the second Brawn of Button.
Webber’s slow in-lap prior to his final stop allowed Robert Kubica past into eighth place, denying Red Bull even a crumb of comfort from an afternoon when it initially looked well-placed to make up points at Button’s expense.
European GP result
1. BARRICHELLO Brawn
2. HAMILTON McLaren +2.3s
3. RAIKKONEN Ferrari +15.9s
4. KOVALAINEN McLaren +20.0s
5. ROSBERG Williams +20.8s
6. ALONSO Renault +27.7s
7. BUTTON Brawn +34.9s
8. KUBICA BMW +36.6s
9. WEBBER Red Bull +44.9s
10. SUTIL Force India +47.9s
11. HEIDFELD BMW +48.8s
12. FISICHELLA Force India +63.6s
13. TRULLI Toyota +64.5s
14. GLOCK Toyota +86.5s
15. GROSJEAN Renault +91.7s
16. ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso +1 lap
17. BADOER Ferrari +1 lap
18. NAKAJIMA Williams +3 laps
19. BUMEI Toro Rosso +16 laps
20. VETTEL Red Bull +34 laps
Fastest lap: GLOCK 1m38.683s (lap 55)
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