Lewis Hamilton jumped Jarno Trulli for second at the start using his KERS button, but lost the position to the Toyota driver at the second round of stops and eventually finished in third place.
In the battle of the Brawns, Barrichello finished in seventh, while Button managed to take one valuable championship point for eighth.
All the front-runners, Vettel, Trulli and Hamilton got away well from the grid, but the KERS on the McLaren allowed the outgoing world champion to make up position on the Toyota into turn one.
Championship leader Button got a dreadful start and he fell back down to 11th, just holding off a challenge from the KERS-equipped Ferrari of Fisichella at the first turn.
Vettel had the pace early on, setting fastest lap after fastest lap to draw out a 4.5 second advantage over Hamilton in second and nine seconds over Trulli.
Mark Webber, having started from the pit-lane after a high-speed crash at the Degner Curve during practice forced the Red Bull team to rebuild his chassis, had a disastrous start to the race, pitting three times for three separate problems in the first five laps.
Hamilton elected to start the race on the soft, option tyre in order to maximise his start, but this meant he was unable to drop Trulli.
Meanwhile, Kovalainen in the sister McLaren was heavily fuelled relative to those ahead of him and he had Adrian Sutil in the first of the Force India’s directly behind him on a much lighter fuel load.
Button, having passed Robert Kubica in the BMW Sauber, was struggling with oversteer behind this pair, but his dream ticket came on lap 14, when Kovalainen left the door open for the Force India driver at the final chicane.
Sutil lunged up the inside of the McLaren into the first part of the corner, but Kovalainen was unwilling to concede the position and he tapped Sutil into a spin at the exit, gifting Button two crucial places and moving him into the final points-position in eighth.
From this point on, the pit-stops came thick and fast.
Hamilton pitted out of second place and he filtered back out from a clean stop behind Nico Rosberg but ahead of Barrichello.
Trulli then entered the pits one lap later and a clean stop from the Toyota pit-crew got him out back behind Hamilton.
Race leader Vettel was delayed by approximately two seconds in his stop, while his lollipop man held him to allow Nick Heidfeld to pass him in the pit-lane after being criticised for releasing his cars into the path of others.
But, although his stop was longer than his closest challengers, such was Vettel’s lead that he still came out of the pits with a comfortable advantage and he even had Rosberg as a buffer between him and the McLaren until the Williams driver made his first stop on lap 22.
After the first round of stops, Button gained six seconds on those ahead of him and he was just five second adrift of his championship rival on lap 29.
By lap 34, Button had clawed his way up to Rosberg and Kubica, who was catching the championship leader until that point, had his run spoilt by Raikkonen who made his second stop of the day and emerged ahead of the BMW Sauber.
Hamilton lost time at his second stop when he got stuck on his pit-lane limiter for about a second and he subsequently lost second place to Trulli.
Button continued to catch Barrichello after the second round of stops, taking seven tenths out of the Brazilian’s advantage on lap 44 alone.
But, his progress was halted momentarily when the safety car was deployed in response to a crash involving Jaime Alguersuari.
The Toro Rosso rookie got onto the Astroturf on the outside of the high-speed 130R turn, losing control of his car and shooting across the track and into the Armco barrier, throwing debris right across the track.
The safety car pulled into the pits with four laps of racing left, having closed the field up.
Vettel got a good restart, but Hamilton, reporting problems with his KERS unit, looked vulnerable and was under pressure from Raikkonen into turn one.
Kubica got right up behind Button into the hairpin, putting the Brawn driver under pressure for that final world championship point while trying to defend his position from Alonso.
Vettel pulled out another comfortable lead to take the victory over Trulli and Hamilton, and the Brawns took three points in total, taking the championship battle on to Brazil.
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