Championship leader Jenson Button says that he feels the Red Bull Racing team now have the quickest car in the field, despite Button's Brawn GP entry taking it's third win from the opening four races of the season in Bahrain this weekend.
Button's win saw him elevated to a 13 point lead over his nearest non-Brawn rival in the championship, but the Brit believes that he was lucky to win the race after Chinese GP winner Sebastian Vettel found his afternoon stymied behind the slower cars of Lewis Hamilton and Jarno Trulli.The Brawn cars also struggled in qualifying, with Button beginning the race in fourth, behind Vettel and the pair of Toyotas, and Rubens Barrichello starting in 6th. Crucially, in terms of comparing the outright pace of the cars, the Red Bull of Vettel had been carrying more fuel than either Button or Barrichello had.
"This one [win] was very sweet because we didn't expect it in a way as Saturday was very poor in qualifying," Button sneered after the race, "Everyone has caught up and I think Red Bull has actually overtaken us, so this one is great and all credit to the guys. The parts on the car are getting very old now, so we can go back to Europe, freshen the parts up, add the aero kit to the car and hopefully make another step forward."
The possibility that RBR now hold the advantage over the former Honda outfit may come as a worry for the Brackley-based team, given that the Red Bull squad are still to debut their own double-decker diffuser, thought to be worth around half a second a lap.
To try and counteract the potential shift in the balance of power, Brawn have a series of updates to the BGP001 to begin in Barcelona.
"We have a series for upgrades for Barcelona and beyond," team owner Ross Brawn insisted earlier, "We have to be optimistic. We have had no upgrades for the first four races, because there was nothing there."
Brawn also insisted that his eponymous team have the resources required to fight for the championship this season, though he stopped short from admitting that a full title challenge was already on his mind.
"We are going out there to win races," he pointed out, "We have got a great driver pairing and we've had a painful restructuring of the company, that is behind us now, and everyone can see what can be achieved. I am optimistic. We have some great drivers the rest is up to us."
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