Vettel delivers Red Bull first F1 win in Shanghai!

It may have taken them 75 races to get there, but when they finally did so they did it in style, as Sebastian Vettel led team-mate Mark Webber home in a resounding Red Bull Racing one-two triumph in a water-logged Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai today.

In an historic result, Vettel not only atoned for his error in the 2009 curtain-raiser in Melbourne that cost RBR the runner-up spoils Down Under, but he survived a nudge from behind from Scuderia Toro Rosso rookie S?bastien Buemi under a mid-race safety car period and demonstrated all the composure of a seasoned Formula 1 veteran to hold his nerve in treacherous conditions that saw many of his rivals spinning off left, right and centre for his second wet weather grand prix victory.

What's more, much as when Jordan broke its own F1 duck in the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps - a race held in similar conditions - Red Bull's success was a double cause for celebration, with Webber taking the chequered flag second to cement the Milton Keynes-based squad's superiority. After two races of Brawn GP domination, the 2009 season has suddenly come alive.

With a wet track, the decision was taken to begin the grand prix under safety car conditions - a controversial move that threatened to play in the favour of the Brawns of Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button and work against the top three cars on the grid, the Red Bulls of Vettel and Webber and the Renault of former double F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso, all of whom were significantly lighter on fuel than the two starting behind them.

Even at low speed behind the safety car, though, there were a number of incidents, with both Ferraris skating off-piste at the same corner and Force India's Adrian Sutil taking a trip through the gravel trap. The young German seized the opportunity to pit, as did countryman Nico Rosberg in the Williams - the first of the leading runners to blink - and then front-row starter Alonso, leaving the trio at the back of the field, but still with the pack and with a pit-stop already in their pocket.

The safety car remained on-track for what must have seemed an interminable length of time for the front-runners, finally coming in at the end of lap eight to release the drivers in a Red Bull one-two, with the menacing Brawns right up behind - and none of them having completed a flying lap in such conditions over the course of the weekend.

Reprising their Malaysian wet weather pace, the Red Bulls rapidly set about scampering away from the Brawn pairing to the extent that after just two racing laps, leader Vettel already had a ten-second advantage over third-placed Barrichello. The gap between the young German and team-mate Webber see-sawed until the first round of pit-stops arrived, when the Brawns took charge, Button now leading Barrichello after the latter had run slightly wide heading onto the pit straight earlier in the grand prix.

Behind the front-runners, it was an inspired Buemi who was the main man on the move, the architect of a truly superb performance that saw him not only hassle but go on to pass the similarly Ferrari-powered Kimi Raikkonen in a gritty and determined display that belied his lack of experience in the top flight.

The young Swiss ace's next target and victim was Jarno Trulli, who went backwards as he struggled for grip in the torrential conditions until his race was prematurely ended by Robert Kubica 17 laps in, with the Pole entering the final corner rather faster than the Toyota ahead of him and the F1.09 riding up over the back of the TF109, destroying the entire rear section of his Italian rival's car and ensuring that the Pescara native's sorry record in China was maintained.

Another driver to make short work of escaping the 'Trulli Train' was Lewis Hamilton - in characteristic hard-charging style, with two wheels off the road - who enjoyed an energetic race in which he duelled entertainingly with fellow former world champion Raikkonen, having to pass the Ferrari on no fewer than three occasions after getting by twice only to subsequently go off-piste, at one stage performing a neat 360-degree spin from which his McLaren-Mercedes resumed unscathed.

Felipe Massa also made it past his team-mate Raikkonen, and proceeded to lap as much as three seconds a lap faster than the Finn until his challenge was cruelly extinguished on lap 18, when the safety car appeared on-track for the second time to allow for the debris from the Trulli/Kubica incident to be cleared away - and the Brazilian's Ferrari suddenly ground to a halt whilst its driver was handily placed in third position.

The Brawns both took advantage of the safety car's intervention to make their first pit-stops, with Button having extended his margin over Barrichello to 13 seconds, lapping up to three seconds a lap quicker than the sister machine. That left the order when the action got underway again as Vettel leading from Button and Webber, with Barrichello down in seventh and dropping away, ceding ground to Heikki Kovalainen in the second McLaren shortly afterwards.

Button and Webber enjoyed a lively scrap over second place in the run-up to the second round of pit-stops for the leaders, with the latter profiting from an error by his British rival at the end of the straight to grab the position away, only to subsequently make a mistake of his own and run wide in the final corner, enabling Button to sweep back past and leaving the Australian having to do it all over again.

Within moments he had done just that, and the New South Wales native would go on to set the race's fastest lap twice in quick succession in his bid to put some clear air between his Red Bull and the Brawn behind him, meaning that with 20 laps left to run, Vettel led Webber by some 17.5 seconds, with a further nine seconds in-hand over the world championship leader.

A lap later and the race leader was into the pits, rejoining not far behind Button, with Webber for his part resuming from his own pit visit crucially just in front of the second Brawn of Barrichello. Though Button too was preparing to make his second stop, Vettel made clear that he was in no mood for messing about as he scythed consummately past his rival to reclaim P1, so that with 14 laps remaining it was a Red Bull one-two once more.

From there, the two energy drinks-backed machines went on to stamp their authority by continuing to pull away from the Brawns behind them, and Vettel would take the chequered flag just over ten seconds ahead of Webber, with Button and Barrichello following home - albeit at a considerable distance - in a Brackley three-four to keep the former Honda F1 outfit firmly in the hunt.

Behind them it was a continuation of the Noah's Ark theme as Kovalainen preceded Hamilton in a McLaren five-six, with Timo Glock surviving a scrappy effort in seventh, having endured a series of spins en route - one of them nudging Nick Heidfeld unceremoniously out of the way - with the impressive Buemi completing the points finishers in eighth.

STR team-mate S?bastien Bourdais, by contrast, was another driver in the wars, spinning once under the safety car and then performing a spectacular pirouette onto the straight a handful of laps later on his way to a lowly eleventh place at the chequered flag, behind Alonso in ninth - a crushing disappointment after Renault's qualifying heroics - and Raikkonen in tenth, meaning this is Ferrari's worst start to a season in some 28 years, when the Scuderia last went through the opening three races without troubling the scorers at all.

The BMWs of Heidfeld and Kubica - the latter requiring two new nosecones during the grand prix for various incidents - ultimately wound up twelfth and 13th, with Giancarlo Fisichella, Rosberg - who unsuccessfully gambled on intermediates in the closing stages - and Nelsinho Piquet rounding out the finishers.

The biggest heartache, however, was undoubtedly reserved for Sutil and Force India. As he has tended to do in such inclement conditions, the young German shone, rising up to seventh in the closing stages and taking advantage of a late-race error by Hamilton to snatch sixth.

All was looking good for the Silverstone-based minnows to register their first points since the Japanese Grand Prix in Fuji back in 2007 - 24 races ago - until, under pressure from four cars behind him and with barely a handful of laps remaining, Sutil hit a patch of water on the track, found himself aquaplaning and his car suddenly swapped ends, pitching him off into the tyre barriers and, much like in Monaco last year, cruelly shattering Force India's hopes in one fell swoop.

For Red Bull Racing, though, there was nothing but joy, with team principal Christian Horner - who only 24 hours earlier had presciently forecast that Sunday would be a 'big day' for his boys - warning after the chequered flag had fallen: "Watch out when we get our double diffuser! The sky's the limit."

Watch out indeed.

Crash.net Driver of the Day: Sebastian Vettel (no explanation necessary...)

To see the race results in full, click here