Strategy, tires and luck all played their parts in Button's well deserved victory in Bahrain but perhaps the most important factor was Lewis Hamilton. His excellent start vaulted him into third behind the Toyotas and, had Button not managed to get by him on lap 2, the race would have been Trulli's. Jenson's pass became the pivotal moment of the race, enabling him to stay with Jarno and Timo while Lewis kept the rest behind him.
Jenson Button
Toyota helped by choosing a fuel strategy that forced them to pit a little early, dropping them into traffic that inevitably affected their progress. Glock had the worst of it, emerging back into the race just behind the bunch following the leaders, and the decision to take the hard tires for the second stint did him no favors as well. His chances at the podium ended right there and he finished in a disappointing 7th place.
Trulli was luckier in that he was able to stay just ahead of the second group and he wasted no time in setting up the Trulli train. Meanwhile Button was building a lead that he would keep for the entire race. Vettel had too few laps after Hamilton's first pit stop to close the gap to Jenson and, after his own stop, he emerged exactly where he did not want to be - just behind Trulli.
And there he stayed until Trulli went in for his second stop, the performance difference between the Red Bull and the Toyota being insufficient to allow Vettel to pass. The young German was able to leapfrog Jarno during the second stops but by then Button, on the same tire strategy as the Red Bull, had a comfortable gap that he kept to the flag. Meanwhile Trulli, now on the soft tires, caught Vettel but found it impossible to pass.
It looked like luck, so much depending on the traffic around each driver after his first stop, but strategy was the real decider. Toyota managed to shoot themselves in the foot again, the decision to run the hards in the second stint proving to be a grave error. Throughout the second stint, Trulli and Glock were defending and could not think of improving their positions.
Button was the man who got the timing right and one has to credit Ross Brawn for much of that - the old fox got it right again. Jenson drove well enough to take advantage of the strategy, however, and the victory was his as much as Brawn's. It is good to see what he is really capable of, now that he has a good team and a competitive car.
Barrichello had a busier afternoon with traffic, a product of his lower grid position, but again he stuck to the task and was rewarded with fifth. Hamilton remained ahead of him, however, judicious use of the KERS button making up for the McLaren's lack of downforce. He seems the best at making the most of the system and must be an increasing threat to the front runners as the team improves the car in the next few races.
Perhaps because the boss was watching, Raikkonen decided to give of his best at this race and duly claimed Ferrari's first points of the season. On heavy fuel he stayed with the group chasing the leaders and came in sixth, about as high as it was possible for a Ferrari to get in this race. Massa had an extra stop to replace a front wing after the first lap and spent the rest of the race battling to get places back. His fastest race lap was over half a second quicker than Kimi's, however, and he has reason to feel that luck has been against him so far this year.
Alonso grabbed the final point in eighth, his racecraft and aggression unable to lift the Renault any higher, and Rosberg disappointed yet again in ninth spot. An unnoticed bright spot lower down the order was that Bourdais at last had a trouble-free race and finished well ahead of Buemi. Whether 13th is enough to save him, since his car is essentially the same as the Red Bull RB5, remains to be seen, however.
And so to BMW. The car is desperately in need of new updates and the team's decision to run long stints backfired when both Kubica and Heidfeld needed new noses after a messy first lap. The best that can be said is that the humiliation of finishing behind Toro Rosso and Force India might at least spur the engineers on to introduce a new diffuser as part of the improvements planned for Barcelona.
The race may not have been the most exciting this year but it was fascinating to watch the influences of strategy and luck unfold. The leading cars are so close in performance now that apparently minor things can make all the difference. And Brawn may have been caught by Toyota and Red Bull in terms of sheer speed, but they still have one unfair advantage - that man Brawn on the pit wall, doing his calculations and pulling the strings. Brawn GP is truly a team effort.