Patronise F1

The starting order for the Japanese Grand Prix has finally been decided on by the stewards. Conveniently for any conspiracy theorists, the final order helps Rubens Barrichello at the expense of championship leader Jenson Button.

The five place grid penalties handed out after qualifying to five drivers had to be applied in the order that the offences were committed, and in typically elegant style, this order took the stewards around 24 hours to actually work out.

The net result is that Rubens Barrichello's penalty has been effectively nullified by the other drivers dropping down, as the Brazilian was the first of the drivers to go through the yellow flag section after Sebastien Buemi crashed his Toro Rosso at turn 15.

Jenson Button, meanwhile, drops to tenth on the grid after committing the same offence, meaning that he will struggle to get ahead of Barrichello, and pole sitter Sebastian Vettel, who is also still in the title race.

Meanwhile, Toyota have confirmed that injured driver Timo Glock will not take part in the race after receiving a leg wound from a crash in qualifying. The efforts of the team to get Kamui Kobayashi to deputise for the injured German have been unsuccessful.

* - Given five place grid penalty for the Buemi incident
** - Given five place grid penalty for changing his gearbox
*** - Will start from pit lane, if at all