Jenson Button Wins from Pole. Crash Knocks Out Top Cars

The first Formula 1 race since the break began today. It is Jenson Button’s first pole in 63 races.

It didn’t take long for the action to start. Kamui Kobayashi’s car was smoking at the starting line. It appeared that his brakes were cooked. Then, the safety car was about after an incident in the first corner. Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Sergio Perez and Romain Grosjean collided and knocked them all out of the race.

The incident happened when Grosjean pushed into Hamilton, and Grosjean was launched into the air and collected Alonso and Perez. Kobayashi who had a very poor start due to his car smoking was also involved but drove through and just needed a new wing.

After the crash, the running order was Button, Kimi Raikkonen, Nico Hulkenberg Paul di Resta and Michael Schumacher. The cars began racing again on lap 4.

On lap 5, Pastor Maldonado lost his front wing and pulled off the track as another retirement.

By lap 6, Schumacher was up to fourth place, and on lap 11 he passed Raikkonen for third. 

Heikki Kovalainen and Narain Karthikeyan collided in the pits on lap 17. Both cars were damaged but were able to get back out. Kovalainen was investigated by the stewards. 

Schumacher came in to pit on lap 20. The stop put him in eighth.

Button was the last of the top drivers to remain on track. He came in on lap 21. Button had a 2.6 second stop and was able to return to the race in first. 

Things were fairly quiet until lap 31 when Narain Karthikeyan spun off ending his day. At the same time Schumacher and Raikkonen were fighting for third. They passed and re-passed each other as each of them got the DRS advantage. On lap 34, Raikkonen passed Schumacher up Eau Rouge. Cleverly, he made the move after the DRS detection zone. So he was able to pass Schumacher and then open his DRS to pull away.

With seven laps to go the running order was Button, then Vettel about 15 seconds down then Raikkonen another 15 seconds behind Vettel. Schumacher was down to seventh place but had lost sixth gear and continued to fall.

There was not any passing at the end, and there was no change in the top three. Button wins; Vettel was second, and Raikkonen was third. Vettel gained 8 places between where he started and where he is finishing.  Button and Raikkonen finished where they started.