2009 Turkish Grand Prix

2009 Turkish Grand Prix
2009 Turkish Grand Prix
Race 7 of 17 in the 2009 Formula One World Championship
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Race details
Date	7 June 2009
Official name	2009 Formula 1 ING Turkish Grand Prix
Location	Istanbul Park, Tuzla, Turkey
Course	Permanent racing facility
Course length	5.338 km (3.317 miles)
Distance	58 laps, 309.396 km (192.250 miles)
Weather	Sunny
Attendance	36,000 (Weekend)
Pole position
Driver	Sebastian Vettel;
Time	1:28.316
Fastest lap
Driver	Jenson Button
Time	1:27.579 on lap 40
Podium
First	Jenson Button;
Second	Mark Webber;
Third	Sebastian Vettel;
	Lap leaders ;

The 2009 Turkish Grand Prix (officially the 2009 Formula 1 ING Turkish Grand Prix)^[3] was the seventh motor race of the 2009 FIA Formula One World Championship. It was held on 7 June 2009 at Istanbul Park, Tuzla, Turkey.

The race was won by Jenson Button, with Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull Racing completing the podium. Vettel had qualified on pole but a mistake on the first lap scuppered his chances of victory.^[4]^[5]

Report

Background

Jenson Button led the Drivers' Championship by 16 points from his teammate at Brawn, Rubens Barrichello going into the race,^[6] while Brawn GP led the Constructors' Championship by 43.5 points from Red Bull.

Tyre supplier Bridgestone selected the hard and soft tyres for the Grand Prix weekend.^[7]

Practice

In Friday practice 1, Williams, Ferrari and McLaren performed well, Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton and Jarno Trulli posting the top 3 times. Brawn, Toyota, Red Bull and Renault ran mid field during the session with BMW and STR backmarking.

In Friday practice 2, Williams, Renault and Red Bull were the most consistent performers, Heikki Kovalainen, Fernando Alonso and Robert Kubica posted the top 3 times. Ferrari, Brawn and Toyota ran mid field during the session with Force India and STR backmarking.

After both Friday practice sessions, individual performances were quite mixed, the only consistent constructor was Williams as BMW and McLaren saw mixed results, while top running teams Brawn and Red Bull ran upper mid field for both sessions.^[8]

Qualifying

Sebastian Vettel dominated the qualifying session on Saturday 6 June 2009, setting the fastest time in all three parts of qualifying to claim his second pole position of the season, and third of his career.

The first knockout session, to eliminate the five slowest cars, claimed the scalp of reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton – only the second time the Englishman had failed to progress from the first session. Also eliminated were Nelson Piquet Jr., Sébastien Buemi, Giancarlo Fisichella and Sébastien Bourdais. They all produced times in the 1:28's.

In the second knockout session, the top 10, who progressed to the final shoot-out for pole, were separated by just 0.4 seconds, with Fernando Alonso and Nico Rosberg just sneaking through. Nick Heidfeld, Kazuki Nakajima, Timo Glock, Heikki Kovalainen and Adrian Sutil were knocked out, Heidfeld qualifying 11th for the second race in succession.

The third session to determine pole position was a tense battle with numerous drivers thinking they had claimed pole only for their time to be bettered.

Vettel was on provisional pole with a time of 1:28.801, with just a few minutes of the session remaining. Vettel's team mate Mark Webber then posted a 1:28.6, only for Button to go two-tenths of a second quicker after the chequered flag fell. Vettel, however, still had one lap left in him and went quicker again, reclaiming pole with a 1:28.316. Button's teammate Rubens Barrichello also improved on his final lap, moving up to third position, ahead of Webber, with a 1:28.5.^[9]

Race

History would favour Vettel, the previous four Turkish Grands Prix having been won from pole position. Button however had two more laps of fuel in qualifying, meaning he would have been on pole fuel-corrected.

Vettel initially made a strong start from pole, beating Button into the first corner. Vettel then ran wide at the tenth turn, gifting Button the lead.^[10] Button's Brawn team-mate had a less fortunate start, a clutch problem dropping him from third on the grid to thirteenth by the end of the first lap. Webber was running third, having initially been passed by Jarno Trulli before the Australian regained his position. Felipe Massa had moved up to fifth position, ahead of Kimi Räikkönen and Fernando Alonso. Reigning world champion Hamilton had lost a place on the first lap, meaning he was running in 17th position out of 20 runners.

At the front Button began to open up a lead over Vettel but the action was in the midfield, Nico Rosberg getting past both Ferraris to move up to fifth by lap six. On lap eight, Barrichello spun trying to pass Heikki Kovalainen after a wheel-to-wheel battle from Turns 9 to 16. The Brazilian dropped to seventeenth but quickly regained two places before losing part of his front wing in a clash with Adrian Sutil on lap eleven. Barrichello pitted on lap thirteen, conversely teammate Button had serenely opened up a 5.6 second lead at the front of the race.

The leaders began pitting for their first stops on lap 15, with Vettel the first to stop, followed by Button two laps later and Webber and Rosberg on lap 18. Significantly, Vettel was fuelled lighter on a three-stop strategy, in contrast to the other leaders two-stop strategy. Vettel was therefore able to close the gap on Button after the first stops with his lighter car, but was unable to make the pass he needed before his second stop on lap 29. Vettel exited the pits behind Webber, with all the leaders due to make one more pit stop.

On lap 37, Hamilton was lapped by championship leader Button, who made his second stop along with Webber on lap 43. Vettel briefly ran second but had to make his third pit stop on lap 48, demoting him back to third position. Trulli emerged from the pit stops in fourth, narrowly ahead of Rosberg, while Robert Kubica and Timo Glock had moved into the final points paying positions as Raikkonen struggled and Kazuki Nakajima was delayed by a left front wheel covering failing to attach in his final stop. Meanwhile, Barrichello's miserable race finally ended as he retired with a gearbox problem while running near the back of the field.^[11] This was the first time that a Brawn GP car was not running at the finish of a race.

Although Vettel closed the gap to Webber to just 0.7 seconds as the chequered flag fell, there were no significant positional changes in the final laps as Button cruised to his sixth win from the first seven races, a feat only matched by Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark and Michael Schumacher – who all won the World Championship after achieving this feat. Button also became the first Englishman to score record four consecutive victories since Nigel Mansell in 1992, who too went on to win the title that season.^[12]

The race attendance was reported as a meager 36,000,^[2] with the venue capable of holding 150,000.

Classification

Qualifying

Cars that used KERS are marked with "‡"

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3	Grid
1	15	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1:27.330	1:27.016	1:28.316	1
2	22	Jenson Button	Brawn-Mercedes	1:27.355	1:27.230	1:28.421	2
3	23	Rubens Barrichello	Brawn-Mercedes	1:27.371	1:27.418	1:28.579	3
4	14	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1:27.466	1:27.416	1:28.613	4
5	9	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:27.529	1:27.195	1:28.666	5
6	4‡	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:27.556	1:27.387	1:28.815	6
7	3‡	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:27.508	1:27.349	1:28.858	7
8	7	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1:27.988	1:27.473	1:29.075	8
9	16	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	1:27.517	1:27.418	1:29.191	9
10	5	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:27.788	1:27.455	1:29.357	10
11	6	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:27.795	1:27.521		11
12	17	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	1:27.691	1:27.629		12
13	10	Timo Glock	Toyota	1:28.160	1:27.795		13
14	2‡	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:28.199	1:28.207		14
15	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:28.278	1:28.391		15
16	1‡	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:28.318			16
17	8	Nelson Piquet Jr.	Renault	1:28.582			17
18	12	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:28.708			18
19	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Mercedes	1:28.717			19
20	11	Sébastien Bourdais	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:28.918			20
Source:^[13]

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	22	Jenson Button	Brawn-Mercedes	58	1:26:24.848	2	10
2	14	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	58	+6.714	4	8
3	15	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	58	+7.461	1	6
4	9	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	58	+27.843	5	5
5	16	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	58	+31.539	9	4
6	3‡	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	58	+39.996	7	3
7	5	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	58	+46.247	10	2
8	10	Timo Glock	Toyota	58	+46.959	13	1
9	4‡	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	58	+50.246	6
10	7	Fernando Alonso	Renault	58	+1:02.420	8
11	6	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	58	+1:04.327	11
12	17	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	58	+1:06.376	12
13	1‡	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	58	+1:20.454	16
14	2‡	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	57	+1 lap	14
15	12	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	57	+1 lap	18
16	8	Nelson Piquet Jr.	Renault	57	+1 lap	17
17	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	57	+1 lap	15
18	11	Sébastien Bourdais	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	57	+1 lap	20
Ret	23	Rubens Barrichello	Brawn-Mercedes	47	Gearbox	3
Ret	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Mercedes	4	Brakes	19
Source:^[14]

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings

	Pos.	Driver	Points
	1	Jenson Button	61
	2	Rubens Barrichello	35
	3	Sebastian Vettel	29
	4	Mark Webber	27.5
	5	Jarno Trulli	19.5
Source:^[15]

Constructors' Championship standings

	Pos.	Constructor	Points
	1	Brawn-Mercedes	96
	2	Red Bull-Renault	56.5
	3	Toyota	32.5
	4	Ferrari	20
	5	McLaren-Mercedes	13
Source:^[15]

Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

References

^ "Turkish Grand Prix Preview". Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. 2009-06-02. Archived from the original on 2009-06-07. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
^ ^a ^b Richards, Giles (22 April 2011). "Turkey grand prix heads for the scrapyard over $26m price tag". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
^ "Turkish". Archived from the original on 2009-11-25. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
^ "Brilliant Button on top in Turkey". BBC Sport. 2009-06-07. Archived from the original on 8 June 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-08.
^ "Button halts Red Bull charge with victory in Istanbul". formula1.com. 2009-06-07. Archived from the original on 2009-08-04. Retrieved 2009-06-18.
^ "Standings FIA Formula 1 drivers' world championship". BBC Sport. 2009-06-06. Archived from the original on 27 June 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
^ "Tyre strategies - Turkish GP". Autosport.com. Retrieved 16 June 2023.
^ "Turkey GP practice as it happened". BBC Sport. 2009-06-05. Archived from the original on 8 June 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
^ "Vettel beats Button to grab pole". BBC Sport. 2009-06-06. Archived from the original on 7 June 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
^ BBC Sport 2009 Season Review The Year In Pictures. BBC Magazines. 2009. p. 68.
^ "Turkish Grand Prix as it happened". BBC News. 2009-06-07. Retrieved 2010-04-23.
^ "Brilliant Button on top in Turkey". BBC News. 2009-06-07. Retrieved 2010-04-23.
^ "2009 FORMULA 1 ING TURKISH GRAND PRIX - Qualifying Results". formula1.com. Archived from the original on 9 June 2014. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
^ "2009 FORMULA 1 ING TURKISH GRAND PRIX - Race Results". formula1.com. Archived from the original on 24 November 2014. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
^ ^a ^b "Turkey 2009 - Championship • STATS F1". www.statsf1.com. Retrieved 21 March 2019.

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