Brawn GP takes maiden 1-2, Hamilton inherits third!

NEW DELHI: How about that? The stakes were already loaded on Jenson Button walking away with top spot in the 2009 Formula 1 ING Australian Grand Prix, but who would have thought that we would be witness to a remarkable day in motorsport history!
For the first time ever, a new team in F1 has finished 1-2 in their first ever race. Yes, after putting their BGP001s on the front row of the grid for today's GP, Jenson Button went on to win with Rubens Barrichello coming a close second!
Even before the five red lights went out signalling the start of the first Grand Prix of the 2009 F1 season, drama had begun to unfold in the pits.Lewis Hamilton was set to start from the back of the grid owing to his gearbox change until he was saved by the Toyota's of Glock and Trulli which were penalised for having too much flex in their rear wings.
When the GP finally went underway, Button went off to a flier of a start and by the end of just 3 laps he was already over 4 seconds ahead of the rest of the field. From then on, Button was largely left unchallenged for the lead all the way to the finish despite two safety car periods - one for the crashed Kazuki Nakajima and then in the final five laps for Vettel and Kubica's collision.
Barrichello, though starting from second spot on the grid, was really lucky to have got the result that he did. After a poor start, he seemed to lurk around in the top 5 and had a few moments including at turn 1 and then later with Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari that shaved off a bit off the BGP001s front wing. But apparently, Brawn's strategy paid off and Rubens finally took the second step on the podium.
If the Brawn story wasn't fairy tale enough for a day of F1 racing, Jarno Trulli managed to put his Toyota in third place only to be demoted to twelfth after stewards gave the Italian a 25 second penalty for going off track under the safety car and then retaking third place from Hamilton.
Toyota needs a good result in 2009 if they're to justify their existence in F1 and what better way to start the year than the way they did at Albert Park, despite the unfortunate late penalty.
Besides the stewards, some great driving, a lot of KERS usage and quite a bit of luck, Lewis Hamilton owes his third place more to Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica than to anything else.
With Vettel on the super soft tyres with less than ten laps to go, Kubica on the harder tyres was steadily catching up. Vettel's tyres started losing grip and Kubica was close enough to make his move. Kubica tried out-braking Vettel and in what is still debatable as a racing incident, the Red Bull and BMW Sauber ploughed into each other leaving both cars devoid of their front wings.
Both drivers tried recovering but the lack of downforce saw them crash into the barriers soon after causing the second safety car period of the race. The crash could have been avoided and either Vettel or Kubica could have been on the podium instead of Trulli (the stewards decision came after the podium ceremony).
Regardless of the results though, the Australian GP was a strong testament to the effects of the new rules in F1 - there was certainly more drama, action and excitement throughout the race and more overtaking than we've seen in recent years.
The teams running KERS did a good job of using it wisely and it can't be dismissed that though the system doesn't have advantages during qualifying, it makes a big impact in the Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton managed to salvage third place for McLaren, while the rest of the points were gobbled up by Glock, Alonso, Rosberg, the rookie of the grid - Sebastien Buemi and Sebastien Bourdais. Felipe Massa retired after 45 laps while Kimi was the last of the running cars after having a brief meeting with a wall. Force India did a good job of getting both their cars home with Adrian Sutil just missing out on points.
The established order is all mixed up on the F1 grid now and going by the close racing action on Sunday, it could be anyone's season just yet. Brawn GP, Williams, Toyota, BMW Sauber and Red Bull are all up there performing brilliantly well - in fact, even better than the likes of McLaren, Ferrari and Renault. The skirmish has just begun!