Malaysia 2009: Post-Qualifying Car Weights

Listed below are the weights of all the cars post-qualifying. The information is now made available by the FIA after qualifying is complete and it allows us to see who did well and who didn’t during Saturday’s running. From this we can work out who might be stopping first and we can have a guess at strategies for each driver. However, some factors will come in to play during tomorrow’s race, the safety car having the biggest impact on fuel consumption, and therefore pitstop times.

Malaysia 2009 Post-Qualifying Car Weights		Car Weight Kilograms
1.	Jenson Button Brawn	660
2.	Jarno Trulli Toyota	656.5
3.	Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing	647
4.	Rubens Barrichello Brawn	664.5
5.	Timo Glock Toyota	656.5
6.	Nico Rosberg Williams	656
7.	Mark Webber Red Bull Racing	656
8.	Robert Kubica BMW	663
9.	Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari	662.5
10.	Fernando Alonso Renault	680.5
11.	Nick Heidfeld BMW	692
12.	Kazuki Nakajima Williams	683.5
13.	Lewis Hamilton McLaren	688
14.	Heikki Kovalainen McLaren	688.9
15.	Sebastien Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso	670.5
16.	Felipe Massa Ferrari	689.5
17.	Nelson Piquet Jr. Renault	681.9
18.	Giancarlo Fisichella Force India	680.5
19.	Adrian Sutil Force India	655.5
20.	Sebastien Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso	686.5

What grabs my attention immediately from looking at the weights of the cars is that Jenson Button, the driver who took pole position, was on 660kg, whereas directly behind him, Jarno Trulli and Sebastian Vettel were actually lighter. This only emphasises the dominance of the Brawn car at the moment, as Button was able to go faster with a heavier car.

We can also see that both Brawns are on a similar strategy, although Button will pit first. The same can be said of the Toyotas, and it should also be noted that with the same amount of fuel, Jarno Trulli was able to go quicker than his team mate; the Italian really is pretty handy at qualifying.

Sebastian Vettel qualified with very low fuel, the German clearly hoping to get as high up the grid as possible before the FIA demote him ten places for the penalty he incurred in Melbourne. Team mate Mark Webber is on a similar strategy to others around him, so he will be hoping to get among the front runners and score some decent points.

The heaviest driver on the grid is Nick Heidfeld, and once again McLaren will likely pit Lewis Hamilton before Heikki Kovalainen. Force India look to have split their strategy, with Giancarlo Fisichella going longer into the first stint as opposed to team mate Adrian Sutil, who will pit around the same time as the front runners.