Suzuka circuit had been missed for few years. Last year race in Japan was at the foot of the mountain Fuji. Now we are back to Suzuka, for me it's a real race circuit.
It is a circuit which was home for Honda F1 team. Sadly we know about their withdrawal. The circuit owner Honda expressed that they have no regret of pulling out from F1 and grateful of BrawnGP impressive performance.
The Suzuka circuit features the famous curve of 130R, which is one of the high speed corner with race car traveling up to 300km. It's such a challenge and demanding circuit for the racers.
About the Japanese being so enthusiastic in this sports, with BrawnGP being previously Honda and much more so with Jessica Michibata as Jenson's girlfriend. This couple is having a rising trend in their popularity and this generate huge interest in Japan, especially for this coming weekend race.
Although Nakajima is the local hero, I'm sure the Japanese fans are rooting for Jenson to wrap up the championship.
The package upgrade for Singapore GP will be good for the Japanese GP and Ross Brawn is expecting to see better performance in Suzuka.
News hit out that Barrichello is close to signing the contract with William F1 team. Barrichello was told that he wanted to get his contract settled to avoid last year dillemma when he was caught cold after Honda withdrawal and the uncertainty of whether he will be racing this year.
This could mean Barrichello will give his all to challenge Jenson to the last race knowing that his days with BrawnGP will come to an end this year. Jenson will really need to becareful as he doesn't want to be caught out like Hamilton in the previous season.
My prediction will be podium and more points. I think constructor championship is pretty much dusted.
Sep 29, 2009
Will BrawnGP wrap up the Championship?
This race is coming fast. Next stop is Suzuka, Japan. It is the race where BrawnGP may wrap up the Constructor Championship. So does Jenson Button to wrap up the Driver Championship.
Will we be crowned the Formula 1 2009 World Champion!!.. I'm excited, really excited.. I can't wait.
Back to the drivers, Jenson is going to need 5 points clear from Barrichello for him to be crowned the champion.
According to Jenson, he is not going to push for it. He is going to go steady and drive as he normally does to secure the title. This sounds dangerous as we all know what happened to Hamilton last year. He almost threw it away.
But Button is the type of driver that is not going to throw it away. He is going to keep his cool and drive reasonably and hoping to capitalise with everything that comes around just like what happened in Singapore.
As for Barrichello, he is going to bring the race down to Brazil at least. And there are all sorts of rumors flying around about his swap to William with Rosberg going the other way.
Ross Brawn is muted about this development, and unless the championship is decided, there will not be any announcement regarding the Rosberg and Barrichello swap.
Sep 26, 2009
Jenson Took Advantage of the Mess
Despite one of the worst qualifying this year and ended in P12 on Saturday, suddenly, he gained 1 position automatically because of Heidfeid disqualification due to underweight car. Both Button and Barrichello gain a position and started the weekend race at 9th and 11th respectively.They are on the clean side of the track which was an added advantage.
Both started the race really well with Barrichello gained 2 spots at 7th and Button leapfrogged Nakajima to 10th. Both cars are in these positions for quite a long stint until the first pit stop was made. Button should have more advantage had the safety car was deployed later.. but safety car was deployed just after front runners were pitted.
Nevertheless, when the safety car was out, he pitted as well and he was loaded plenty of fuel which he can use to overtake Barrichello when Barrichello made his 2nd stop. It was panned out that way perfectly with Button gone as far as P3. But he needed to make 1 more short pit stop to last the race.
When Button made his final stop, he managed to leapfrogged Barrichello (his closest championship rival) to 5th and Barrichello is at 6th position. At one point, Button was closing to Vettel, and it was Button braking condition worsen that he was told to back off and nurture his brakes to finish the race.
All in all, Button has gained 1 point over his closest rival who is his teammate Barrichello, and was not losing much to Vettel. Jenson is such a lucky chap despite his poor qualifying performance which could easily without any points from Singapore GP.
Sep 26, 2009
BrawnGP Qualifying Setback
It's such a bad qualifying for BrawnGP in Singapore GP. Everythings are conspired to bring the F1 to the grand finale.
1st practice session was good, and it's getting worse in practice 2 and 3.
In the qualifying Q1, everythings seems to be ok. But when Q2 came, bad mistake and heavy locked on the brake by Button caused him to be out during the last lap. Barrichello was barely made it to Q3 at the last seconds when the Q2 time expired.
In Q3, Barrichello was pushing inches too far and bang it went with the car suffering heavy damage. It's really a race against time to fix the car for tomorrow race actual. He will be 10th a further 5 positions down because of change in the gearbox.
Button will be at 12th position for tomorrow race but he will be loaded with heavier fuel than Barrichello as he is free to choose how much fuel to carry while Barrichello having got into Q3 has to stick to the amount of fuel eh started in Q3. This is where Button has an added advantage.
Now, everythings are playing into the hand of Red Bull as Vettel and Webber in 2nd and 4th position respectively because they have the chance to close back the gap they had failed to capitalised.
So, the chances of BrawnGP winning the race tomorrow are absolutely remote, barring any miracle. The best hope at the moment is scoring some points. The only hope is for Red Bull to fail again to capitalize this situation.
Sep 20, 2009
More Preview: Singapore GP
For the entire week, the weather is mostly cloudy in Singapore, with sign of rain and thunderstorm. Mostly happen in the afternoon. However, this will provide cooler track at night and this doesn't sound good for BrawnGP.
The grip will be less in this condition and we all know about the problem of getting heat into the tires. Nevertheless, we got a significant upgrade for the aerodynamic configuration of the BGP001 car. Due to the low speed corners, the car will be setup using the high downforce aero configuration.
BrawnGP decided to go for it with big upgrade for this Singapore GP, as much of the detail is really unknown for BrawnGP car to race at night condition. This unique circuit could be a one off race where any team has the advantage of winning it.
Button comment on the exciting race ahead with concern on the dark corner of turn 1 and 5 because he felt it's hard to adjust the braking distance when you are not seeing it clearly.
As for Barrichello, at the back of his recent win, he is looking forward to reduce the gap even more. There are some controversies over the team giving more favor to Barrichello when some of the information were held back and lack of cooperation from Barrichello's side.
According to veteran Couldhard, drivers and their engineer do hold little bit of information back to edge out extra couple of tenths of second. And he told that Ross knew it all well.
My thinking for this weekend night race, I do not have high hope that we can win it, hopefully we can gain some points to push further away.
Sep 20, 2009
BrawnGP Preview: Singapore GP
F1 ROCKS is rocking Singapore now, leading to the F1 race in couple of days time. The big names of Beyonce, Black Eyed Peas, ZZ Top, and Jacky Cheung are some of the famous artists on show.
The place is hotting up, many tourists flogging into this small island. The hotels are fully booked. Residents of Fort Canning Park can really feel the heat. The torrid sun in the afternoon surely blaze the venue.
Although it's a night race on this street circuit, don't expect the temperature to be low. Here at the night, you can feel the heat like during the day (of course not the scorching heat). It's humidity is so high that will make you keep sweating.
Getting on the Singapore Flyer is even nicer as you can get a bird's eye view on the Marina Bay and the city. It's beautiful up there, but the price for it in this even is substantial.
Now back to the race, BrawnGP has secured additional sponsor for this race. The reputable company is Canon and only sign a one off deal for Singapore GP.
The circuit runs on anti-clockwise direction, and one of the slowest race street circuit with max speed reach only 175kph.
There are 1500 floodlights illuminate this track to provide enough light for the night race. It makes the night looks like day. It's one of the state-of-art lighting system with an extraordinary backup power grid solution. There will be no blackout problem for this race.
It has 23 corners and many of the corners are slow corners and BrawnGP should be good in these kind of circuit characteristic. The BGP001 car has good traction and will perform well in this race.
From the driver point of view, the news are carrying momentum regarding Button position in BrawnGP next year. It is said that Mercedes Benz (which will have sizable share in BrawnGP) favor a move to sign Niko Rosberg. However, Button intend to stay on although he is having a battle to get back to his previous salary bracket (he took massive cut to stay with the team when Honda left).
More preview coming up later..
Sep 15, 2009
BrawnGP Drivers 2010
I know this will spark some kind of controversy as nothing is confirmed. But in a Q&A session with reporters, there were couple of questions threw to Ross Brawn regarding the 2010 drivers lineup.
He said there's no reason to change drivers as both are doing a good job. However, when prompted about seeing the same drivers next year, Ross stumbled and he was just saying that it's not decided yet.
He was talking about other more important things to settle first before dwelling into the next year roster.
There are a lot of what-if scenarios for the drivers lineup next year. If Jenson win the Championship, he will justify for his salary raise as his current salary was far too low for his current ability. What if there are disputes in this area. However, I believe Button will be staying as he had been going through the tough and good time with the team.
As for Barrichello, he is no spring chicken, he is at his twilight of his career. But relationship between Ross and him is very good. It is remained to be seen if he is leaving, most probably he will retire as BrawnGP driver.
Sep 13, 2009
4th 1-2 Victory in Monza
BrawnGP is really back! Looking at the qualifying, I know BrawnGP was fueled heavy. Infact it's really heavy that they were actually doing a 1 pit stop.
In the qualifying, I knew BrawnGP got the pace, because in the Q2, Button was top of the list. In Q3 during qualifying, both BrawnGP was slow because of the heavy fuel.
Both BGP001 cars started really well. Although coming to the 1st corner into the kebb, I was worrying of the packed cars which might caught into each other.
Lucky both cars were unscathed and Button was able to attack Kovaleinan and overtook him. It was an aggressive move but a move
that really determined his 2nd spot finishing.
The 1 stop strategy worked really well because at the time when they pitted, it was clear traffic coming out from the pit stop. Everything was working out perfectly.
The tires were in good condition which was important as they were doing only a pit stop. Both drivers did a consistent drive towards the end, and it was Button that was chased by Hamilton.
It was so aggressive that in the end Hamilton lost control of his car and crashed. It was the last lap and Barrichello and Button were over the chequered flag celebrating.
Button is finally on the podium and back to the best. Looking at the way he attacked Kovaleinan indicates he is changing his mentality. Obviously playing it safe is not safe enough so hopefully he is on the charge to the driver championship.
Barrichello gain 10 points and close the gap by 2 points as Button got 8 points from the race. Webber DNF and Vettel only got 1 points made the top more room to breathe.
Sep 7, 2009
Monza Preview
High speed and long straight track, not a circuit for BrawnGP. It's more of a circuit for KERS cars. I guess that's why Renault is putting in the KERS.
I do not know what to expect from this race. Hopefully some points onboard but I believe Ferrari and McLaren will be dominating this Italian GP.
From the interview, I don't see the 2 of our drivers are optimistic about this track. They were just saying how exciting to race here and for Barrichello he had the sweet memory here as he had tasted victory here during his time with Ferrari.
Meanwhile Sir Jackie Steward has commented on Button recent dip in form, urging him to stay away from the trouble in the coming race. Bad start and bad qualifying really made the difference as the chances of getting into troubles grow significantly when a car is in the middle of the crowd.
The former world champion also said that he thinks Jenson will bounce back and secure his very first world Championship.
Sep 7, 2009
Mercedes Stakes on BrawnGP
It's inevitable for Mercedes to keep squashing the rumours of Mercedes buying into BrawnGP. Mercedes is committed to McLaren and doesn't want the rumours to jeopardised their relationship.
However, BrawnGP has secured it's future as some contracts had been signed, but will only announce it when they launch the BGP car for next year.
It is confirmed the engine supplier for next year will be Mercedes.
Sep 6, 2009
Barrichello Engine Relieve
It was told that Barrichello car engine was unscathed even though there was big fire when he finished his race in Spa. It was 2 laps before the end when his engineer informed him that it was probably due to oil leakage and not because of engine problem.
It's a welcome news as Barrichello is on 6th engine, and they can only use 8 engines per season. If 9th engine is used, then there will be 10 grid penalty.
But I'm not sure if that engine really good enough for next race in Italy. Neverheless, we sure have better option with the last engine still intact.
does Jenson Button to wrap up the Driver Championship.
Getting on the Singapore Flyer is even nicer as you can get a bird's eye view on the Marina Bay and the city. It's beautiful up there, but the price for it in this even is substantial.
BrawnGP is really back! Looking at the qualifying, I know BrawnGP was fueled heavy. Infact it's really heavy that they were actually doing a 1 pit stop. 
High speed and long straight track, not a circuit for BrawnGP. It's more of a circuit for KERS cars. I guess that's why Renault is putting in the KERS.
Provisional 
