I’m sure both Filipe Massa and Fernando Alonso will stick to their stories as well as Ferrari, but it was a pretty clear cut case even from watching the camera footage, listening to the team radio broadcast and how Massa moved over on the circuit.

Hopefully this will draw an end to todays race fixing results and the Formula 1 championship can still continue.

Fernando Alonso was gaining in 2nd position towards Felipe Massa. Felipe’s engineer Rob Smedley at Ferrari made a radio broadcast to Felipe saying “Fernando is faster than you, can you confirm you understand?” shortly afterwards Felipe was seen moving out of the way to let Alonso past.

Although both drivers deny team orders took place, both seem to be unhappy and Felipe’s body language certainly seems to suggest that orders did come into play.

Rule 39.1 of the Formula One rules stipulates “Team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited”

With Jean Todt former Ferrari Principle and now the new FIA president, some media sites and broadcasts are suggesting that might have some bearing on the outcome. Time will tell…

Webber and Vettel were leading in the Red Bulls until Vettel took out Webber in a racing incident. Webber managed to keep going and ultimately finish on the podium in third position.

Michael only managed to qualify in 7th place but bearing in mind he’s been away for 3 years and hasn’t raced professionally since 2007, this is a pretty good start to the season and shows he still has what it takes to qualify. It won’t be long until he makes it into P1, P2 or P3.

Unlike the version available for the Sony PSP, the iPhone and iPod Touch version unfortunately doesn’t pit you against other famous F1 drivers in a race to the finish. Instead the focus here is on time-trials across the 2009 season’s 17 tracks, with 20 drivers from ten teams at your handling mercy.

So unfortunately this really is half a game, most F1 fans really want to be able to race as their F1 star, or race against the other F1 drivers.

There are two types of time trials available:-

• Lap Time, in which your best lap is recorded
• Endurance, a race with your average lap time calculated over multiple laps (you get a choice of total number of laps for both modes). It’s definitely not the most comprehensive F1 game package to ever grace the F1 genre, but what F1 2009 lacks in the play options department, it more than makes up for it with the way it drives.

Unfortunately F1 2009 seems to be a pretty cut back version, as it doesn’t have any AI competition, but you can launch yourself into chicanes, accelerate out of hairpins and power down on the straights.

While F1 2009 lacks that ability to race other drivers, you can post your high scores online and see how good you are against other virtual drivers. It’s a shame that there isn’t a championship mode in the game.

F1 2009 can be purchased from the iTunes App Store for $6.99 / £3.99

The 29-year-old from Frome finished in fifth place, but ahead of his Brawn GP team-mate and nearest rival Rubens Barrichello, who led for the first 21 laps before fading badly in the later stages and then being further hampered by a puncture.

It was the fifth successive season that the Interlagos circuit produced decided the title, with Lewis Hamilton being crowned world champion here just 12 months ago. Brawn also claimed the constructors’ title to make it a double celebration for the British team.

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Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel brought his world championship hopes alive again with a superb victory in Japan on Sunday afternoon, winning as he pleased and leading Jarno Trulli’s Toyota home by 4.8s despite a late safety car intervention. Lewis Hamilton was third for McLaren, another 1.5s adrift, after losing out to Trulli in the second pit stops.

Seventh place for Rubens Barrichello, just ahead of Brawn team mate Jenson Button, leaves the championship points table as Button 85, Barrichello 71, Vettel 69 with two races remaining.

Ahead of the duelling Brazilian and the Englishman, Kimi Raikkonen brought his Ferrari home fourth after a fighting drive, while Nico Rosberg made some amends for his Singapore error by taking fifth for Williams. Nick Heidfeld was sixth for BMW Sauber.

 
As the drivers’ world championship heats up, Brawn have all but settled the constructors’ with 156 points to Red Bull’s 120.5, placing the latter within half a point of clinching that crown.

If Rosberg were to be demoted, Brawn could have picked up the necessary point and celebrated the teams’ title in Japan. Stewards after investigating Rosberg ruled that he had been unable to watch his laptime because of a ‘low fuel’ message on his steering wheel display.

“The telemetry data shows that the driver from a safety point of view had reacted adequately to the yellow flags and safety car boards. In view of this the stewards intend to take no further action,” read the FIA officials’ report.

You are not aloud to break a maximum lap time when behind the safety car and Nico Rosberg beat this time in one sector when behind the safety car.

An imperious drive from Sebastian Vettel at Suzuka and saw the Red Bull driver win the Japanese Grand Prix and stay in the 2009 championship chase. Jarno Trulli was second for Toyota, with McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton third.

The other title contenders, Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button, finished seventh and eighth for Brawn, who narrowly missed out on securing the constructors’ crown. Full results…

Prior to the start of the Grand Prix, five drivers had been moved down the grid for the Japanese Grand Prix.

They are Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello, Adrian Sutil, Sebastien Buemi and Fernando Alonso.

However because of the large number of drivers that received penalties, some of them will not lose a full five places.

All of the drivers except Buemi were penalised for failing to slow down sufficiently after Buemi left debris at the exit of Spoon curve during Q2.

Buemi, meanwhile, was punished for driving his broken car back to the pits instead of stopping on the track.

01 – Sebastian Vettel
02 – Jarno Trulli
03 – Lewis Hamilton
04 – Adrian Sutil
05 – Rubens Barichello
06 – Nick Heidfeld
07 – Jenson Button
08 – Kimi Raikkonen
09 – Heikki Kovalainen
10 – Sebastien Buemi

The current top 8 driver standings are…

• Jenson Button
• Rubens Barrichello
• Sebastian Vettel
• Mark Webber
• Kimi Raikkonen
• Lewis Hamilton
• Nico Rosberg
• Fernando Alonso

1. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 660.5kg
2. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 651
3. Nico Rosberg, Williams, 657.5
4. Mark Webber, Red Bull, 654.5
5. Fernando Alonso, Renault, 658
6. Timo Glock, Toyota, 660.5
7. Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber, 650
8. Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber, 664
9. Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, 664.5
10. Rubens Barrichello, Brawn GP, 655.5
11. Kazuki Nakajima, Williams, 680.7
12. Jenson Button, Brawn GP, 683
13. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 680.5
14. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, 678
15. Jarno Trulli, Toyota, 690.9
16. Adrian Sutil, Force India, 693
17. Jaime Alguersuari, Toro Rosso, 683.5
18. Giancarlo Fisichella, Ferrari, 678.5
19. Romain Grosjean, Renault, 683
20. Vitantonio Liuzzi, Force India, 656

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