REAL GENIUS; Brawn, Button and Barrichello stick it to the big-timers.(NEWS)

Byline: ADAM COOPER

The Australian Grand Prix signaled the start of a new world order in Formula One, as Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello completed an extraordinary clean sweep for the Brawn GP team. Just 23 days after the announcement that a management buyout had saved the former Honda outfit (Competition, March 23), the Mercedes-Benz-powered cars dominated as the season began.

Lurking in the background is controversy: The FIA wants to introduce an F1 "budget cap next year and give competitive breaks to teams that compete with it. The aim is to fill the 11th and 12th slots on the entry list and possibly allow more teams to join. The FIA set a limit of about $42 million to cover all spending. "Budget teams will be allowed to use engines with no rev limit and also will receive aerodynamic advantages to help them keep pace with unlimited-budget teams. Inevitably, this unprecedented idea of a two-tier formula was not well received by existing teams.

Then there is the issue of the "double diffusers used by Brawn GP, Williams F1 and Toyota in Melbourne, which could still be banned (see sidebar). Depending on your point of view, those teams have either exploited an unintended loophole in the rules or used brilliant ingenuity to pursue a route that the usual front-runners missed. The FIA's opinion leans toward the latter.

But in Melbourne, few outside the defeated teams suggested that the result was anything but a wonderful fillip for F1, as not only Brawn but several other teams left the established favorites reeling. A combination of low downforce, skittish cars and tricky tire management spiced up the show, as did the debut of KERS, which gave those using it help in overtaking. In the end, Ferrari, McLaren-Mercedes, Renault and BMW-Sauber (though only with Nick Heid-feld's car) used the systems.

Button and Barrichello swept the front row in qualifying and had so much speed that they carried heavier fuel loads than most others. In the race, Button escaped clean at the start, helped by a first-corner tangle that involved his teammate, who made a terrible start. Button opened up a huge lead, only to lose most of it when a safety car came out after 19 laps. But he managed to pit and stay in front.

Thereafter, he was pursued hard by Sebastian Vettel, the young German doing a brilliant job in Adrian Newey's new Red Bull RB5, apparently the second-fastest car at the moment. Excitement increased in the closing laps as tires played a part. Everyone knew that the "supersoft option rubber, which had to be used for at least one stint, grained badly after a few laps.