Button wins Chinese GP in Formula One 4th race

SHANGHAI: Defending champion Jenson Button Sunday delivered a perfectly judged drive in treacherous wet conditions to win a dramatic Chinese Grand Prix ahead of his McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

The two Britons, champions in successive years, delivered their first one-two of the season in style to prove that if Red Bull have the fastest car in qualifying, McLaren have great race performance, strategy and tactics.

The two Red Bulls of German Sebastian Vettel and Australian Mark Webber, who had scored a one-two in Malaysia two weeks ago, came home sixth and eighth.

Button''s triumph in a winning time of one hour, 46 minutes and 42.163 seconds was his second in four races since joining McLaren this season and the ninth of his career.

It lifted him 10 points clear at the top of this year''s embryonic drivers'' championship ahead of German Nico Rosberg, who finished third for the new Mercedes team.

Rosberg''s veteran team-mate and compatriot, 41-year-old seven-times champion Michael Schumacher, struggled home 10th to claim a single point.

Rosberg, who also made the right strategic calls and led for 19 laps, came home third, ahead of two-times champion Spaniard Fernando Alonso of Ferrari. Pole Robert Kubica was fifth for Renault and Vettel, who started from pole, was sixth for Red Bull.

Russian Vitaly Petrov proved his flair in the wet conditions to finish seventh for Renault ahead of Webber in the second Red Bull.

Schumacher looked set to finish eighth until the closing laps when he was passed by Webber and then Brazilian Felipe Massa, who took ninth for Ferrari. Schumacher was 10th.

Button, having chosen not to rush for an early change of tyres, rose to second and then took the lead from Rosberg after 19 of the 56 laps and stayed there.

The result gave McLaren their first one-two finish since the Italian Grand Prix at Monza in 2007, when Hamilton was second to then-team-mate Alonso.

It is the first British one-two in Formula One since 1995 when Damon Hill and David Coulthard dominated the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Button now leads the title race on 60 points ahead of Rosberg on 50 with Alonso and Hamilton equal third on 49.