The 12th round of the 2009 season rolled into Spa for the 65th running of the Belgian Grand Prix. The season had been mainly dominated by Brawn and Jenson Button, but recent races had seen the Red Bulls catch up, and the championship battle was hotting up. Button was 18 points ahead of his team-mate, Rubens Barrichello, with the Red Bull pair of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel 2.5 and seven points further behind respectively. In the constructors’ championship, Brawn were 27.5 points ahead of Red Bull, with Ferrari and McLaren battling it out for third a lot further down the points.
2009 Belgian Grand Prix
First practice was wet, and saw little dry running, with Jarno Trulli fastest. Vettel, running low on his engine allocation after problems in the previous race in Valencia, sat out the session. The second session was dry, and saw Hamilton came out on top. Of the 20 drivers, only two were unable to post a time within a second of Hamilton’s. The third session was topped by Nick Heidfeld, and saw engine problems for Webber.
In qualifying, Luca Badoer crashed out near end of the first session, slowing a lot of cars on their hot lap. The highlight of the second session was the elimination of Button, who was joined by Hamilton and Alonso. In the final part of qualifying, the big teams struggled, and Giancarlo Fisichella took a surprise pole position, with Trulli and Heidfeld second and third.
Qualifying
1 Giancarlo Fisichella, Force India-Mercedes
2 Jarno Trulli, Toyota
3 Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber
4 Rubens Barrichello, Brawn-Mercedes
5 Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber
6 Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari
7 Timo Glock, Toyota
8 Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull-Renault
9 Mark Webber, Red Bull-Renault
10 Nico Rosberg, Williams-Toyota
11 Adrian Sutil, Force India-Mercedes
12 Lewis Hamilton, McLaren-Mercedes
13 Fernando Alonso, Renault
14 Jenson Button, Brawn-Mercedes
15 Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren-Mercedes
16 Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso-Ferrari
17 Jaime Alguersuari, Toro Rosso-Ferrari
18 Kazuki Nakajima. Williams-Toyota
19 Romain Grosjean, Renault
20 Luca Badoer, Ferrari
At the start, Barrichello lost several places due to an issue with the clutch. Raikkonen went wide at La Source, but recovered to get into third running up to Eau Rouge, and second coming down to Les Combes. Further down the grid, Grosjean collected Button, which resulted in Alguersuari running into the back of Hamilton to put out all four drivers. This resulted in a safety car before the end of the first lap.
At the restart, Raikkonen took the lead of the race from Fisichella coming out from Eau Rouge. Vettel, who lost to Rosberg at the start, regained the place at Les Combes. Sutil, who had pitted, took 14th place from Badour. Glock suffered an issue with the fuel rig when he pitted on lap 12, and went from fourth to 13th place. Raikkonen and Fisichella pitted together, with the Finn maintaining the lead.
Webber suffered a drive-through penalty for getting too close to Heidfeld in the pits. Another pit-stop delay, this time for Alonso, hurt his podium chances, and then had to retire due to collision damage from the first lap. The gap between the front two was rarely over a second, but the Finn held on to claim his fourth victory here, and his first race win since last year’s Spanish Grand Prix. It wasn’t just Force India’s first ever podium, but their first ever championship points. At the end of the race, Barrichello suffered a fuel leak which caused the car to catch fire.
Race
Position Driver Time Points
1 Raikkonen 1 hour 23 minutes 50.995 seconds 10
2 Fisichella +0.939 8
3 Vettel +3.875 6
4 Kubica +9.966 5
5 Heidfeld +11.276 4
6 Kovalainen +32.763 3
7 Barrichello +35.461 2
8 Rosberg +36.208 1
Even though Ferrari were delighted to record their first victory of the season, the biggest cheer on the podium was for Fisichella and Force India. With Button failing to score, he saw his championship lead cut by two points, and Red Bull closed up on Brawn. Just like Barrichello’s car, the title race was heating up.
