Brazilian Rubens Barrichello won the European Grand Prix for championship leaders Brawn GP today, giving him his first Formula One victory in nearly five years.

Barrichello, whose last success was with Ferrari in China in September 2004, beat McLaren's world champion Lewis Hamilton by 2.3 seconds on a sizzling afternoon at the Valencia street circuit.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen finished third.

Championship leader Jenson Button, Barrichello's team mate, finished seventh but saw his overall lead trimmed by just half a point to 18 with six races left. The Briton now has 72 to Barrichello's 54 and 51.5 for Red Bull's Australian Mark Webber.

Webber finished out of the points in ninth place while German team mate Sebastian Vettel, who had been third overall, retired with a blown engine. He has 47 points.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.