Renault’s F1 Classics : 2009 Chinese GP

The 2009 Chinese GP has a place in the history books as the first victory logged by the Red Bull-Renault partnership. It was a race that signalled the start of an extraordinary run of success for both Sebastian Vettel and his RBR team.

Vettel had already made his mark with Toro Rosso in 2008, taking a superb win in a wet Italian GP. At the end of the season he moved across to the sister Red Bull outfit as team mate to Mark Webber. His arrival was the final ingredient – it was clear that RBR-Renault was now ready to win races.

However, Vettel’s 2009 season started with some frustration. In Australia he tangled with Robert Kubica, losing at least a third place. He then went to Malaysia with a 10-place grid penalty – where he had a very good chance of being on the podium with or without the rain that shortened the race.

In China an exciting dry qualifying session saw the top five cars cross the line almost together in the closing seconds of the session. Webber put his RB5 on pole with his last flying lap, only for Vettel to steal it away again just moments later. The blue cars were then split by Fernando Alonso, who slipped his Renault into second, helped by a very low fuel load.

The Red Bulls had an Achilles Heel however, as both drivers suffered driveshaft related problems which restricted their running during the day, and which gave the team some cause for concern for Sunday.

After two dry days rain began to fall at Sunday lunchtime, and the race thus started behind the safety car. That eradicated much of the advantage of anyone with an ultra light load, and as the laps behind began to mount up Alonso blinked first and came in for more fuel at just the wrong time. The team didn’t know that the FIA would call the safety car in within seconds of Fernando heading down the pitlane.

When the race finally went green Vettel had just seven flying laps in which to make the most of his strategy before he needed fuel. He remained 3s clear of Webber, who pitted on lap 14, and when Seb came a lap later he’d extended his advantage on Brawn’s Jenson Button to 13s. In just seven flying laps...

He dropped only to third, behind Button and his team mate Rubens Barrichello. A few laps later the safety car came out again after Robert Kubica hit Jarno Trulli, and dropped debris on the track. Button and Barrichello were both able to dive into the pits and refuel without problem, while Vettel regained his lead. After that the RBR driver drove a perfect race, regularly setting fastest laps and not putting a foot wrong as he scored RBR’s first win at the team’s 74th attempt.

The RB5 package worked to perfection in the wet, but it wasn’t just a question of steering the thing round. This was one of those rare races where the cars ran throughout on extreme wets (everyone except Nico Rosberg, who went for slicks near the end), and on every lap there were multiple chances for things to go wrong.

“It was a very difficult race, a very long race,” said Vettel afterwards. “It was extremely difficult, because there was a lot of water, some standing water, some rivers, even some lakes. Cars were going off, the team was telling me by radio be careful, be careful. So I had all the time a warning.

“I had a lot of moments with aquaplaning where the car just started to slide and I was hoping the tyres would stick again. Fortunately with all these moments I had back the control of the car a bit later, so I’m extremely happy.”

It was a good effort too from Webber. His chance of staying on terms with his team mate was spoiled when Button got ahead during the safety car sequence, so Mark was stuck behind him at the restart. By the time he got through, Vettel was 10s up the road. At the flag 24 laps later the gap was still 10s.

As the race progressed Button couldn’t match the pace of the RBR cars, but was happy to keep his championship lead by coming home third, ahead of Barrichello. But all eyes were on Vettel – this was clearly the start of something special.