MONZA, Italy, (Reuters) – Brazilian Rubens Barrichello won the Italian Grand Prix in a Brawn one-two yesterday to trim team mate Jenson Button’s Formula One championship lead to 14 points with four races left.
Button returned to the podium for the first time in six starts with second place, 2.8 seconds behind the veteran, in a race that made the title chase look even more like a private battle between the two.
Finland’s Kimi Raikkonen was gifted third place for Ferrari after McLaren’s world champion Lewis Hamilton crashed on the last lap.
Hamilton had started on pole position but is now mathematically out of the championship chase.
Button has 80 points to Barrichello’s 66 with Red Bull’s German driver Sebastian Vettel and Australian Mark Webber on 54 and 51.5 respectively and looking effectively out of the running. Hamilton has 27.
“On the lap after the chequered flag I had no words,” said Barrichello, Formula One’s oldest driver at 37, who had started the race with concerns about the reliability of his car’s gearbox.
“It just feels great. I’m going to give my best. It’s going to be a good and healthy fight,” he said of the battle ahead.
Button’s finish, with Mercedes-powered Brawn’s fourth one-two of the year, was a firm response to critics who had expressed concern that he might be buckling under the pressure.
“It’s nice to be back up here,” he said. “I’d like to be where Rubens is sat but he did a better job today. I’ve lost two points to Rubens but gained seven on Vettel.
“We’re going to take it I’m sure right down to the wire…for me it was a great result.”
The victory, in an enthralling strategic battle played out between those on one-stop and two-stop strategies at Formula One’s fastest track, was Barrichello’s second of the season and 11th of his career.
The Brawns, who have now won eight of 13 races and two of the last three, made just the one stop. They have 146 points in the constructors’ standings to Red Bull’s 105.5 and third-placed Ferrari’s 62.
Raikkonen and Hamilton, who was in third place when he caught the curve at the first Lesmo corner and hit the wall at the second, pitted twice.
Germany’s Adrian Sutil finished fourth, collecting his first points of the season and handing Force India their second scoring finish in two races.
Spain’s double world champion Fernando Alonso took four points for Renault, a team rocked by race-fixing allegations, while Finland’s Heikki Kovalainen was sixth ahead of BMW-Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld.
Vettel finished eighth, while Webber was pitched out on the first lap by BMW-Sauber’s Robert Kubica.
“I haven’t had any points in the last three races. I am going to struggle if I am not scoring points. I have had a good little run at the championship but we have to keep going,” said the Australian.
Italian Giancarlo Fisichella, who had finished second for Force India in Belgium last month, was ninth on his Ferrari debut as a replacement for the team’s struggling stand-in Luca Badoer in the absence of injured Brazilian Felipe Massa.
