F1 2009 Super Season Grid – Post Bahrain

Jenson Button is back to winning ways with victory in Bahrain, but has his efforts over the weekend allowed him to retain his average pole position on the 2009 Super Season Grid? Well it's that time once again, and as you've already seen in an earlier blog post, the field is so, so close now with the spread as close as a fraction over 1 second! Believe it or not, it wasn’t Rosberg or JB who ended the weekend the fastest man on average over the whole weekend. Nope, it was in fact, surprisingly, Lewis Hamilton for McLaren with an average time of 1’33.676. So, has it helped the reigning World Champion move up the order? Let’s find out:

1. Jenson Button – 1’34.008  +0.000  Non-mover
2. Nico Rosberg – 1’34.047  +0.039  Non-mover
3. Rubens Barrichello – 1’34.132  +0.124  Non-mover
4. Mark Webber – 1’34.350  +0.342  Non-mover
5. Timo Glock – 1’34.447  +0.439  Non-mover
6. Sebastien Vettel – 1’34.511  +0.502  +1 place
7. Jarno Trulli – 1’34.560  +0.552  +2 places
8. Heikki Kovalainen – 1’34.584  +0.575  -2 places
9. Kimi Raikkonen – 1’34.607  +0.599  -1 place
10. Lewis Hamilton – 1’34.618  +0.609  +3 places
11. Felipe Massa – 1’34.642  +0.633  +1 place
12. Robert Kubica – 1’34.665  +0.657  -1 place
13. Kazuki Nakajima – 1’34.674  +0.666  -3 places
14. Nick Heidfeld – 1’34.825  +0.817  Non-mover
15. Fernando Alonso – 1’34.872  +0.864  Non-mover
16. Adrian Sutil – 1’35.091  +1.083  +1 place
17. Sebastien Buemi – 1’35.124  +1.115  -1 place
18. Nelson Piquet – 1’35.218  +1.209  +1 place
19. Sebastien Bourdais – 1’35.237  +1.229  -1 place
20. Giancarlo Fisichella – 1’35.370  +1.362  Non-mover

As it turns out, it has helped Hamilton. In fact, he’s the biggest mover in the grid by jumping 3 places from 13th to 10th. I reckon this was mainly down to topping FP1 and making the top 10 in qualifying. So it definately shows the MP4-22 is slowly but surely moving up the grid with the oncoming updates every race. At the head of the grid, Button retains the average pole, but has only managed to move away by 8 thousandths from Rosberg with Barrichello, Webber and Glock completing the top 5. They are all non-movers along with Heidfeld, Alonso and Fisichella, who remains at the back of the pack.

In the midfield, Vettel has made up one slot after a solid weekend’s work, as have Massa, Sutil and Piquet. Trulli is the second biggest mover, shifting up 2 places, while Kovalainen goes down 2.  Biggest loser is Nakajima who sinks 3 places and out of the top 10. The field gap has closed up by about 2 tenths which means the upgrades brought by Force India and the like have helped.  With Ferrari, BMW, McLaren and Brawn all reportedly bringing updates to their car for Barcelona, as I’m sure the majority of the grid will be too, we might just see the field either tighten up further or start to widen up.

That’s all for the Super Season Grid this time. Spain will be where the season really begins as it’s F1’s return to Europe and the chance to gauge just how the current crop of F1 cars really stack up against each other. Bahrain was the first completely dry race on a proper racing circuit, but the temperatures there are higher than those usually experienced at the European races. But we’ll have to wait and see whether the former “big 4” teams can reassert any of their former authority at the front. See you after Barcelona!