FORMULA ONE:Rubens Barrichello today brought a remarkable week to a close for Brawn GP. It was only last Thursday team owner Ross Brawn confirmed they had been salvaged from the ashes of Honda Racing and would be on track this season.
Seven days on, and they have astounded paddock onlookers with the pace of their car over the four days of this week’s final group test at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya.
As if to prove Jenson Button’s time yesterday was no fluke, as the Briton was over a second quicker than his rivals, Barrichello today posted the fastest time of the week on the final day.
Undoubtedly in qualifying trim, the veteran Brazilian was still the only driver to dip under 79 seconds, doing so late in the day of his 110 laps with a one minute 18.926secs.
The rest of the field were again left trailing as Williams’ Nico Rosberg was 0.848secs adrift, with Timo Glock in his Toyota just over a second down, the latter stopping on his final lap with a mechanical problem.
Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso have again looked strong for Red Bull Racing and Renault respectively as they finished fourth and fifth overall.
As for last year’s main title protagonists in Felipe Massa, Robert Kubica and Lewis Hamilton, they had to settle for sixth, seventh and eighth for Ferrari, BMW Sauber and McLaren.
Hamilton, in particular, was almost two seconds and five kilometres an hour down on Barrichello, completing just 70 laps.
At least the reigning world champion’s time of 1:20.869 was easily the best of the week for McLaren by over eight tenths of a second.
Along with a small handful of teams, McLaren will now head to Jerez next week for their final testing session, clearly with the hope of finding extra speed ahead of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on March 29.
Sebastien Buemi and Sebastien Bourdais were both given a run out in the new Toro Rosso, sandwiching Force India’s Giancarlo Fisichella as the trio finished ninth, 10th and 11th overall.