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Thursday April 2, 2009

Rookie team confident of continuing fairy-tale run

By LIM TEIK HUAT

THEIR rivals are smelling blood but Brawn GP are confident that they can continue their fairy-tale run in the Petronas Malaysian F1 Grand Prix this weekend.

Brawn made a stunning 1-2 finish in their debut race in F1 at the season-opening Australian GP last Sunday and it was only the interference of the safety car that prevented Jenson Button from winning the race by a much bigger margin.

And Rubens Barrichello finished second even though he made contact with the Ferrari car driver by Kimi Raikkonen.

Button and Barrichello also claimed the top two spots in qualifying the previous day.

It was certainly a remarkable performance from the rookie team in F1, who only came in after Honda quit late last year because of the global economic crisis.

Strong team: Ross Brawn (centre) is confident that after the 1-2 finish in Australia that the Brawn drivers, Jenson Button (right) and teammate Rubens Barrichello, will rise to the challenge in Sepang. — AFP

But going into the second round in Sepang, Brawn have a fight on their hands, especially at a flowing track where wheel-to-wheel racing is the order of the day.

Team principal Ross Brawn is, nevertheless, upbeat about their chances of staying ahead of the pack in Sepang.

“The Australian GP weekend was a fantastic experience for our team and the 1-2 result for Jenson and Rubens went beyond our hopes and expectations for our very first race,” he said.

“We know that our competitors will not stand still however and that the challenge will become ever more difficult from here. But we can rise to that challenge. We have a very good and stable car, which should go well around the Sepang circuit.

“As in Australia, we will need to maximise the practice running that we have on Friday to develop the set-up, and we will be faced with the usual reliability concerns caused by the high temperatures that we expect in Malaysia.”

The former Ferrari engineer also felt that the unpredictable weather conditions could make the race more interesting.

The race on Sunday will start at 5pm and there may not be enough light if the skies turn too dark because of heavy rain.

“As the race is later than usual in the calendar and will take place later in the day, we are expecting some rain showers. The strategy for the weekend will be very interesting,” said Brawn.

Meanwhile, the Brawn team have been scheduled a 4.15-4.35pm time slot on Saturday for Button and Barrichello to meet the fans at the circuit for an autograph-signing session.

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