Jenson Button, talking to the BBC after the race, was a bit more blunt in his description: “Kobayashi is absolutely crazy, very aggressive.”

The 23-year-old Japanese driver has been Toyota’s F1 test driver for the past two seasons but apart from two rounds of free practice at this year’s Japanese Grand Prix, he has never raced.

All that changed when Toyota’s regular driver Timo Glock did not recover from a leg injury in time for the Interlagos showdown. Starting from 11th place on the grid, Kobayashi drove with such brazenness and abandon that one of the commentators on the Hungarian broadcast I was watching remarked that he had never seen anybody drive a Toyota F1 car with such gusto.

Said lack of gusto is a major headache for Toyota, who have been running a well-financed team in F1 for eight seasons without a single win in 138 races. Their drivers have always been a bit…well, a bit like the Toyotas you purchase for daily driving. No major problems to complain about at all—but certainly nothing remarkable about them either.

And you just cannot win in Formula One without remarkable drivers who border on absolute craziness. While some of what Kobayashi was doing, especially his back-to-back overtaking battle with eventual world champion Jenson Button, was on the far edge of the rulebook, one thing is for certain: he is the kind of driver Toyota needs.

Even if the very expensive Kimi Räikkönen ends up slipping from their grip for 2010, Toyota could do worse than install Kobayashi in either Trulli’s or Glock’s permanent seat. Now that they have at last learned how to build a consistently fast car, all they need is a driver with that extra determination to stick his car on the racing line.

Whether that racing line happens to be occupied or not.

Photo Credit: TORU YAMANAKA/AFP/Getty Images, Clive Mason/Getty Images, Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Please note that like all videos depicting recent Formula One races, the one embedded above showing Kobayashi battling Button at the Brazilian Grand Prix can disappear at whim. F1 employs a number of trigger-happy copyright lawyers.

As a race, it was a weird combination of boring and fun, with some crashes adding sparkle to what was otherwise a procession. A resurgent Lewis Hamilton led from start to finish, followed by Toyota’s Timo Glock. Victory has eluded the Japanese team yet again, for the 136th time since their debut in Formula One in 2002.

Last year’s grand prix, the first such event in Singapore, was the scene of Renault’s staged crash for Nelsinho Piquet, which cost Renault team boss Flavio Briatore his career in motorsports. His ex-team, however, made it onto the podium courtesy of Fernando Alonso, who brought his R29 home in third place, the first podium finish for Renault this season.

Alonso and winner Hamilton—teammates and mortal enemies at McLaren for the 2007 season—provided for some high body language fun, as they could not conceal their mutual disgust neither in the pre-podium room nor on the podium itself. A bloody fight to the death with broken bottles of Mumm champagne was, for a long time, not out of the question.

The talented Mr. Vettel of Red Bull will have to wait until next year to seriously challenge for the title, as a number of rookie errors have contributed to his poor finish at 4th, effectively putting him out of the world championship race.

Meanwhile, Jenson Button of Brawn GP gained two points on teammate Rubens Barrichello with his 5th place finish. He now leads the championship with 84 points to Barrichello’s 69, with 30 more up for grabs in the remaining races. Even though he has not won a race since Vettel demolished him in his home race at Silverstone, Button will have a hard time losing the championship if he continues to finish well into the points.

Only three more races to go in perhaps the strangest Formula One season ever. Stay tuned for the Japanese Grand Prix this weekend at Suzuka.

The case for night races! Giancarlo Fisichella in his Ferrari is a wonderful sight in his Ferrari even if he threatened nobody for points.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Even pitstops look cooler at night. Here’s eventual winner Lewis Hamilton being fuelled by his silver and red McLaren team.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Quick, silly face, you’re in focus—not! Did you know that F1 babes are officially called grid girls? I love that.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

There is a painterly quality to this photograph taken just after the start of the race. Lewis Hamilton led from pole to finish.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Contrary to her usual habit, Lewis Hamilton’s girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger did not spend every second on camera jumping up and down. Hamilton is just as perplexed as every connoisseur of the female form.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Timo Glock in his Toyota, on his way to second place, living the Toyota Curse. Still, in spite of his bad luck, he is a man named after a German handgun.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Famous people! In fact, a famous couple: Jean Todt is with his fiancée, former Miss Malaysia and Bond girl Michelle Yeoh.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

If you were a refueling hose, this is what you would see of a Formula One race. Spectacular—but I suspect rather repetitive after a while.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Jenson Button is on his way to demonstrate how to win the Formula One world championship without winning a single race in the second half of the season.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

A happy Hamilton! Look how bubbly and used up his tires are after the race.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Bursting with joy is Mr. Alonso after his first podium finish since last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix, isn’t he?

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel is obviously a future champion. All he needs to do now is not make silly mistakes. Then again, he’s 22—and I’ll just bet you can remember silly mistakes you’ve made at that age.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Watch the gap between Hamilton and Alonso. Bosom buddies, aren’t they?

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Photography is complicated enough as it is, but when you add a lens that purposely manipulates the plane of focus or meddles with parallel lines, full comprehension will require a trip to the Physics section of your local bookstore to familiarize yourself with the work of Theodor Scheimpflug. The lenses used to take these photos are highly expensive and the output they produce cannot be used for straight news reportage, yet a handful a sports photographers employ them to capture the visuals of Grand Prix weekends in ways impossible with other equipment. And no, not every tilt-shift photo is a a fake miniature.

Click through for a distorted trip of the past three years of Formula One.

2008 Japanese Grand Prix

Here’s the Red Bull team having fun at Fuji Speedway. This is perhaps the most optically complex photo in our gallery and not only because you are probably spectacularly uninterested in the subjects in the plane of focus.

It’s because the girl’s left cheek also appears to be in focus, yet a blurred field separates it from the Red Bull team members. Physics majors, please explain in the comments.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Kimi Räikkönen, 2009 Monaco Grand Prix

This is classic tilted plane fake miniaturization: the chap in the red car is Kimi Räikkönen, on his way to Ferrari’s only podium finish this year.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Jenson Button, 2009 Turkish Grand Prix

A tilted focus is great for portraiture: photographer Mark Thompson can direct our gaze to Jenson Button’s left eye at the exclusion of everything else. Button here is consulting with his teammates at the 2009 Turkish Grand Prix, before his crushing victory on race day.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Jenson Button, 2009 British Grand Prix

If you tilt your plane of focus to a narrow vertical field, you can isolate a race car with sudden clarity. Jenson Button is seen here during free practice at last weekend’s British Grand Prix, where he lost by a wide margin to Red Bull’s flying Sebastian Vettel.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Felipe Massa, 2007 Monaco Grand Prix

Let’s see some Ferraris: Felipe Massa is seen here sharing a plane of focus with a bunch of yachts in Monaco harbor. He is on his way to finish third behind the twin McLarens of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Michael Schumacher, 2008 German Grand Prix

Ferrari personnel in their red getups make for great photos: here’s Michael Schumacher at last year’s German Grand Prix, looking very excited as he’s sandwiched in between two aesthetic crimson blobs as the sole punk in blue jeans.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Kimi Räikkönen, 2009 Turkish Grand Prix

Ferraris may suck this season, but even parked and hooked up to computers, they look gorgeous. 2007 world champion Kimi Räikkönen is about to go for a practice run at a race he would finish outside the points. Notice how the tilted plane renders everything but Räikkönen’s head and the yellow Scuderia Ferrari badge out of focus.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Kimi Räikkönen, 2007 British Grand Prix

Last Ferrari photo, but look at the fancy British clouds, sharp only where they line up with the starting grid of Silverstone, which photographer Clive Mason chose as his plane of focus. Kimi Räikkönen is seen here in happier times: he is about to qualify second in the 2007 British Grand Prix, a race he would win on his way to claim the 2007 championship.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Timo Glock, 2009 Bahrain Grand Prix

This photo captures like no other Mercedes-Benz’s renowned racing manager Alfred Neubauer’s observation that the racing driver is the loneliest creature in the universe. Neubauer invented pit signaling to remedy this, taking his Mercedes-Benz team to a hail of victories over three decades, while photographer Fred Dufour used a tilt lens to show Toyota’s Timo Glock practicing for the 2009 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

David Coulthard, 2008 German Grand Prix

It’s Mr. Jawbone right there in his Red Bull, in the waning months of his long career. Wearing a flameproof balaclava, he is a lone white human figure in a scaffolding of wire and carbon fiber suspension parts.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel, 2009 Bahrain Grand Prix

Contrary to what you can read on the pit wall, this is David Coulthard’s successor Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull RB5 car, leaving the pits at the 2009 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Hamilton, Heidfeld, Fisichella and Alonso, 2009 Spanish Grand Prix

You can also use a tilt-shift lens to cut through the clutter of people at a press conference, picking out those that your viewers are probably most interested in: bitter 2007 rivals Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, shown here at a press conference three days before the 2009 Spanish Grand Prix.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Red Bull’s Guests, 2007 Italian Grand Prix

Like any other photographic technique, a tilted plane of focus can be used to capture gratuitous shots of young women. These blondes are guests of Red Bull at the 2007 Italian Grand Prix and judging solely on appearance, they are hopped up on the team’s signature soft drink.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Jenson Button, 2009 British Grand Prix

And we’re back to toy cars. While photographer Fred Dufour probably did not know at the time he took this picture, Jenson Button’s usually dominant Brawn would actually be relegated to toy car status during last weekend’s British Grand Prix, as Red Bull’s upgraded RB5’s stormed the field, taking their second 1–2 victory of the season.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel, 2008 German Grand Prix

Black and white? Art! Focusing in a slanted plane on Sebastian Vettel’s face shows just how young Red Bull’s superfast German really is: he was born on July 3, 1987. When this photo was taken, he'd only been old enought to have a beer in America for less than two weeks.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Fernando Alonso, 2009 Monaco Grand Prix

For a final tilted image, here’s one for pure aesthetic awesomeness. Fernando Alonso is taking the Grand Hotel Hairpin of the Monaco street circuit in the Renault during free practice at this year’s grand prix.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

The horizon already looked gloomy when the field set off to run the planned 56 laps of the Malaysian Grand Prix. Fat tropical rainclouds darkened the horizon, as Jenson Button on the pole was passed by a nimble Nico Rosberg of Williams for the lead. But the real star of the start was sneaky Fernando Alonso in a heavily fueled Renault, who used his Kers button—the gizmo that stores braking energy as a readily available power pop—to great effect and zoomed throught the field up to third. Alonso then proceeded to hold up most of the field behind him in scenes reminiscent of trains on a railroad track.

The bunch around Alonso provided for gorgeous, fluid racing in the first dozen laps. Cars hugged each other with inches to spare, then a single mistake by Alonso allowed Räikkönen in his Ferrari to rocket by. He was replaced on Alonso’s heels by Red Bull’s Mark Webber—nicely recovered from his balls-freezing time in the cryo chamber—who got into a great game of cat and mouse with the double World Champion, before Alonso solidified his position in fifth. It was motor racing at its most beautiful.

Lap 18 saw a botched move by Ferrari, as they recalled Kimi Räikkönen into the pits to shoe him in full wets—with still no rain on the circuit, only those looming thunderclouds on the horizon. Räikkönen slowed down and dropped to the back of the field.

A few laps later, the rain did start, and the field dashed for the pits—except for a hypersonic Jenson Button, still on slicks with a very light load of fuel. Over two flying laps, he built up enough of a lead to pit for intermediates and come in to lead the race. Another brilliant move by Ross Brawn, similar to but the inverse of his tactics at last year’s British Grand Prix, where he put Barrichello on full wets before the rain really started to fall, which allowed the Brazilian in his abysmal Honda to zoom through the field and take third.

The zooming this time was done by Toyota’s Timo Glock, who was given a set of intermediates for a track half dry and half soaking. Glock was closing in on Button at something like 8 seconds a lap, going through the field like butter.

The rain eased up for a few laps at this point, and Button came into the pits for the fourth time to change for intermediates. He immediately charged up on Timo Glock—who had changed to full wets—and passed him for the lead.

And it was at this point that the rain clouds went medieval. Cars began aquaplaning and the safety car was followed very shortly by a red flag. The drivers pulled into the grid with rain falling in buckets as everyone ran for their lives. The cars were soon swarmed by team personnel in umbrellas, as a nervous Felipe Massa of Ferrari radioed for a new visor to replace his useless, fogged-in one, and was promptly told “Felipe baby, stay cool”.

This he did, along with the rest of the field. Grabbing snacks and drinks, they waited for the rain to stop to no avail. As a Grand Prix has to conclude within 2 hours of its start, all eyes were on the clock. The rain showed signs of abating, and the drivers got back to their cars and then time ran out and a scruffy Button was told that he had just won back-to-back Grands Prix, with Nick Heidfeld in 2nd and Tim Glock in 3rd place. Trulli was 4th, Button’s teammate Rubens Barrichello 5th, with Webber, Hamilton and Rosberg rounding out the points.

Because the race was stopped with less than 75% of the total distance covered, drivers will get half points, similar to what had happened at the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix—scene of a young Ayrton Senna flexing his rain muscles—where Alain Prost took 4.5 points and ended up losing the World Championship to Niki Lauda by half a point.

For the 70 minutes that the cars were out there racing, it was magnificent stuff. The Brawns are great but not boringly dominant, and a number of young teams are lapping at their heels. The season continues on April 19 in Shanghai.

If the 15 remaining races are half as good as these first two were, 2009 will definitely be a year to remember.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images, Paul Gilham/Getty Images, NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images