Jenson Button clinched his first world title in Brazil against all the pre-race odds with a swashbuckling drive fully worthy of any world champion.
The Brawn driver brilliantly battled back from a dismal qualifying session that left him 14th on the grid, converting a string of aggressive, but perfectly executed, early passing moves into a fifth-place finish while team-mate Rubens Barrichello’s title dreams died on home ground.
Barrichello had led the race’s opening stages, but slipped to third behind eventual race winner Mark Webber and BMW’s Robert Kubica through the first round of pit stops and thereafter fell off the pace.
He dropped to fourth in the closing laps before fate dealt him one final blow, a puncture forcing him into a late pit stop and consigning him to eighth place.
In any case Button had already done enough to clinch the crown on his own merit by virtue of his incisive overtaking during the early laps, which gave the lie to those who said he would limp over the finish line with a percentage drive.
The result ensured Brawn GP comfortably sealed a remarkable constructors’ world title in its first year, capping a fairytale 2009 for the Brackley squad just 10 months after Honda’s shock F1 withdrawal left its future in doubt.
Red Bull may have missed out on both titles but Webber at least gave the team something to celebrate here, the Australian driving a flawless race to claim his second career win.
Kubica was equally impressive in claiming his first podium of the season, while outgoing world champion Lewis Hamilton charged superbly from 17th on the grid to third after using a lap-one safety car intervention to switch to a longer fuel strategy.
Sebastian Vettel was another comeback star but fourth wasn't enough to keep him in title contention, although the Red Bull youngster did edge back in front of Barrichello to second in the drivers’ standings.
The race got off to a breathless start that set the tone for the afternoon.
Polesitter Barrichello led into the Senna S to a huge roar fro the crowd, while the KERS-powered Kimi Raikkonen vaulted from fifth to third behind Webber and immediately mounted an attack on the Red Bull down the back straight.
Webber was in no mood to concede, however, and smartly chopped across Raikkonen’s bows as the Finn began to pull alongside, leaving the Ferrari with a crumpled nose cone.
As the close-following Adrian Sutil got held up in the melee, Jarno Trulli planted his Toyota on the outside of the Force India going down the hill through the flat-out turn five.
Both men refused to yield and the result was a major collision that eliminated them and an innocent Fernando Alonso, and brought out an immediate safety car.
The drama continued in the pits as Heikki Kovalainen (who had been tapped into a spin by Vettel at the first corner) left his stall with the fuel hose still attached, giving Raikkonen a face full of fuel as he made his way down the pit lane following his stop for a new nose cone.
At restart Kubica outbraked Nico Rosberg for third at the Senna S, while Button – who had moved from 14th on the grid to ninth amid the first-lap commotion – showed he would be taking no prisoners in his bid to carve through the field with a breathtaking pass of Renault rookie Romain Grosjean.
He snatched seventh from Kazuki Nakajima with a similarly combative move in turn one, but found Toyota rookie Kamui Kobayashi a much tougher nut to crack.
After several committed lunges at the Senna S were unceremoniously rebuffed by the feisty Japanese driver, Button finally made it stick on lap 25 and promptly pulled 3.6s clear within a lap and a half.
Vettel had cut a similarly dashing path through the field from his lowly grid spot, and loomed as a threat to Button due to his later first scheduled stop.
At the front Barrichello had been leading comfortably from Webber – but the 2.7s margin he had built by the time of his early first pit stop proved not to be enough.
He rejoined the race track in heavy traffic, and was powerless to prevent Vettel majestically sweeping around the outside of him at Ferradura, then immediately had Hamilton snapping at his heels.
Meanwhile Webber was able to eke out a further five laps and was flying on low fuel – as was Kubica, who had stayed impressively close to the top two through the opening stint.
All of a sudden the race was slipping away from Barrichello, and the pendulum in the precarious title battle swinging – decisively, as it turned out – in Button’s favour.
Such was Webber’s speed and Barrichello’s struggle in the five-lap phase between their respective pit stops that the Australian converted a deficit of 2.7s into an advantage of 8.3s after his first flying lap on new tyres.
Kubica had comfortably leapfrogged Barrichello too, leaving Rubens in an effective third place, which was unlikely to be good enough given that Button looked destined to score at least a couple of points.
All was not yet lost, but it soon would be, for what really snuffed out Barrichello’s fading title hopes was his surprisingly poor pace throughout the middle stint.
“What the hell’s happened to the car?” was Rubens’s anguished cry over the radio to race engineer Jock Clear.
Although Clear tried to calm him down, and pointed out that his lap times were not too far off-target, the stopwatch told a different story.
While Kubica trailed leader Webber by 7.3s on lap 28 and actually narrowed that deficit to less than 6s ahead of his second pit stop on lap 46, Barrichello fell an additional 7s adrift over the same period in an increasingly distant third place.
Now his fate lay in Button’s hands.
If Barrichello finished third – not a sure thing as Hamilton was coming into the picture – Jenson would need only seventh place to clinch the title.
The Briton was well on course to achieve that, climbing to second before his late first stop on lap 29 and continuing to make good progress through the traffic after he rejoined.
Vettel’s first fuel load took him all the way to lap 37 and he rejoined just behind Button.
The German got the upper hand at the next pit stop exchange – stopping a lap later than Button, who got trapped behind Kovalainen’s McLaren on his out-lap – elevating him to fifth place, but it was too little, too late for his title chances.
Barrichello’s task would soon become yet more forlorn as his race continued to unravel in the race’s final stages.
He was still struggling for pace, reporting a vibration in his right-front tyre, and finally fell into Hamilton’s clutches at the Senna S on lap 63.
Worse was to come, as his left-rear had sustained a slow puncture in an earlier brush with Lewis (which had also damaged the McLaren’s front wing endplate) and he had to pit again on lap 64, dropping him to eighth place.
As Webber reeled off the laps to a convincing win, Kubica chased him gamely and Hamilton held off a closing Vettel, Barrichello’s puncture left Button fifth.
Nothing could deny him the title now; he was even spared the predicted late shower which gave Hamilton such an agonising final lap here last year.
Raikkonen salvaged three points for sixth place after his first-lap dramas, while Sebastien Buemi took a strong seventh for Toro Rosso, equalling his best Formula 1 result to date.
The disconsolate Barrichello toured home eighth. Yet again, his Interlagos jinx had struck – while Button had taken luck into his own hands and proved that, for all the wobbles, he was a deserving champion.
Brazilian Grand Prix result (71 laps)
1. WEBBER Red Bull
2. KUBICA BMW +7.6s
3. HAMILTON McLaren +18.9s
4. VETTEL Red Bull +19.6s
5. BUTTON Brawn +29.0s
6. RAIKKONEN Ferrari +33.3s
7. BUEMI Toro Rosso +35.9s
8. BARRICHELLO Brawn +45.4s
9. KOVALAINEN McLaren +48.4s
10. KOBAYASHI Toyota +63.3s
11. FISICHELLA Ferrari +70.6s
12. LIUZZI Force India +71.3s
13. GROSJEAN Renault +1 lap
14. ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso +1 lap
R. NAKAJIMA Williams +41 laps
R. ROSBERG Williams +44 laps
R. HEIDFELD BMW +50 laps
R. SUTIL Force India +71 laps
R. TRULLI Toyota +71 laps
R. ALONSO Renault +71 laps
Fastest lap: WEBBER 1m13.733s (lap 25)
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