Barrichello qualifies on pole in Brazil, Button and Vettel struggle
Barrichello secured his first pole in five years, however Button and Vettel failed to perform
Saturday, 17, Oct 2009 08:45
By Adam Leveridge
Torrential rain threw a spanner in the works for championship contenders Jenson Button and Sebastien Vettel during qualifying for the Brazilian grand prix, however Rubens Barrichello overcame the obstacles to secure his first pole position in five years ahead of Mark Webber.
Vettel ran on a dry setup and he failed to make it through to Q2 along with the McLaren pairing of Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen, who will start 17th and 18th.
Despite the persistent rain, which delayed the third and final practice session of the weekend, the first phase of qualifying started as planned.
Cars exited the pit-lane as soon as the pit-lane opened to get in a banker lap incase the rain fell more heavily.
Vettel was the first to record a time, tip-toeing around the Interlagos circuit and crossing the line in 1m39.694 and he was followed across the line by a number of other drivers, including Nico Rosberg and Giancarlo Fisichella.
Four minutes into Q1, Fisichella became the first casualty of the wet conditions, spinning his Ferrari and stalling it to bring out the red-flags.
This forced a number of drivers, including Button and Hamilton to abandon their first flyers and race control decided to delay the restart of Q1 until conditions improved.
The session eventually got back underway and, just like in third practice, the Williams pairing of Rosberg and Nakajima performed well in the wet conditions, the young German topping the times with a 1m22.8.
Raikkonen went on to record the second fastest time, ahead of Robert Kubica and the Brawn pairing also showed well with Barrichello and Button ending the 20 minute session in fifth and sixth respectively.
After dominating Friday practice, Japanese grand prix winner and championship contender Vettel failed to make it through to the second phase of qualifying along with the two McLarens of Hamilton and Kovalainen and Nick Heidfeld's BMW Sauber.
Vettel's Red Bull, with its dry setup, looked terrible in the wet and the conditions then went against the young German when the rain began to fall again.
As the rain continued to lash down on Interlagos, the start of Q2 was delayed.
Rosberg was the first out on track, although nobody was able to finish a timed lap, as Vitantonio Liuzzi brought out the red-flags when he had a big crash into the barriers at turn one.
The Italian got out of the cockpit unscathed and after a long delay Q2 got going again.
Rosberg and Webber led the way again at the beginning of the second part of qualifying but it was the Williams driver who ended up on top with his team-mate Nakajima in close company.
By the end of Q2, Webber had been shuffled down the order to sixth position when Adrian Sutil, Sebastien Buemi and Jarno Trulli pumped in quick laps to slot themselves in at the top of the timesheets in the dying seconds of the session.
Barrichello just scraped through into the top-ten shootout too, however his Brawn GP team-mate Button failed to make through and he will start the race down in 13th place.
In the end it was Barrichello who came out on top with a 1m19.5, one tenth ahead of Webber in the first of the Red Bulls, who couldn't do enough despite a valiant attempt.
Sutil popped in in third place, knocking Trulli down to fourth and Buemi pulled out the fifth fastest time only to be shuffled down to sixth by Raikkonen in the final seconds of the session.