Sebastian Vettel took his sixteenth career Grand Prix victory with a commanding drive at the Valencia street circuit.
The world championship leader led from the front and was able to resist the challenges from both Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber to take the chequered flag in style for the sixth time this season.
Alonso finished a very encouraging second for Scuderia Ferrari in front of his home crowd. Both Ferraris had jumped Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren at the start, with the flying Felipe Massa dodging between Hamilton and Alonso, then trying to get down the inside of Mark Webber for second. But as he had to back out of the move, Alonso went around the outside of his team-mate and took third.
Alonso then stayed close behind Webber and managed to grab second position with an outbraking move on lap 21. The Spaniard could not shake the Australian off, and when the Red Bull made its second stop one lap sooner, Webber was able to vault back ahead of Alonso.
But the battle was not over, as at the final tyre changes Alonso regained the advantage by running three laps further on used softs while Webber was on his new medium tyres. The Ferrari rejoined just in front, and any hope Webber had of coming back at Alonso ended when the Red Bull team ordered him to back off and take care of a gearbox finish. He held on for third spot.
Running longer at most pit-stops did not help Massa, who fell back to fifth in the end behind Hamilton. The McLaren driver was left struggling with pace during the middle stint on the soft Pirellis.
Canadian Grand Prix winner Jenson Button had a very low-key race. He was passed by Nico Rosberg at the start and by the time he had dived back ahead of the Mercedes with a bold move at Turn 2 on lap six, the rest of the leaders were out of reach. A later KERS fault ensured Button would finish in a disappointing sixth.
Rosberg took seventh, having battled for a while with the impressive Jaime Alguersuari, as the Toro Rosso driver converted his P18 grid position to an eighth place finish by making a two-stop strategy work while everyone else had to pit three times. Alguersuari fended off Adrian Sutil to the flag, as the Force India escaped from an early battle with Nick Heidfeld’s tenth placed Renault.
Sauber’s Sergio Perez adopted a one-stop strategy – just like Melbourne – but alas, the Mexican just finish outside the points with P11.
Michael Schumacher’s hopes of points ended when he made contact with Vitaly Petrov’s Renault as he rejoined the track from the pits following his first tyre change. That meant an extra stop for a new front wing, leaving the Mercedes in P17. Petrov was only P15, having never really recovered from a bad start.
Remarkably, all twenty-four cars started the European Grand Prix and after 57 laps in the warm conditions, there were no retirements. Although only the top seven finished on the lead lap.
Vettel’s sixth win out of eight means his championship lead is now more than three wins’ worth of points. By salvaging third place Webber is now tied for second with Jenson Button.
The next race is the home of motor racing, Silverstone. With the ban on the cold/hot air blown exhaust for the British Grand Prix, will we see a change in form? And can anyone catch the flying Red Bull and the superb Sebastian Vettel? We will find out next month.
Race results from Valencia, 57 laps:
1. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1h39:36.169
2. Alonso Ferrari +10.891
3. Webber Red Bull-Renault +27.255
4. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes +46.190
5. Massa Ferrari +51.705
6. Button McLaren-Mercedes +1:00.000
7. Rosberg Mercedes +1:38.000
8. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari +1 lap
9. Sutil Force India-Mercedes +1 lap
10. Heidfeld Renault +1 lap
11. Perez Sauber-Ferrari +1 lap
12. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth +1 lap
13. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari +1 lap
14. Di Resta Force India-Mercedes +1 lap
15. Petrov Renault +1 lap
16. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari +1 lap
17. Schumacher Mercedes +1 lap
18. Maldonado Williams-Cosworth +1 lap
19. Kovalainen Lotus-Renault +2 laps
20. Trulli Lotus-Renault +2 laps
21. Glock Virgin-Cosworth +2 laps
22. D’Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth +2 laps
23. Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth +3 laps
24. Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth +3 laps
Fastest lap: Vettel, 1:41.852
World Championship standings, round 8:
Drivers:
1. Vettel 186
2. Webber 109
3. Button 109
4. Hamilton 97
5. Alonso 87
6. Massa 42
7. Rosberg 32
8. Petrov 31
9. Heidfeld 30
10. Schumacher 26
11. Kobayashi 25
12. Sutil 10
13. Alguersuari 8
14. Buemi 8
15. Barrichello 4
16. Perez 2
17. Di Resta 2
Constructors:
1. Red Bull-Renault 295
2. McLaren-Mercedes 206
3. Ferrari 129
4. Renault 61
5. Mercedes 58
6. Sauber-Ferrari 27
7. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 16
8. Force India-Mercedes 12
9. Williams-Cosworth 4
Next race: British Grand Prix, Silverstone. July 8-10.
After taking his sixth Grand Prix victory from eight races, world championship leader Sebastian Vettel has a massive points advantage but he is not thinking about the title. Autosport.com has the details.
Sebastian Vettel insists he is not looking at the championship table yet, despite his huge advantage after his victory in Valencia.
The world champion scored his sixth win in eight races on Sunday, extending his lead in the championship over Mark Webber and Jenson Button to 77 points.
The gap means Vettel would still lead the championship even if he missed the next three races.
But the Red Bull driver says it is important ro focus on each race to try to achieve the best result, and claimed he is not focused on the championship yet.
“I don’t look at the gap, it is a long season,” said Vettel. “For sure we have had a phenomenal start to the season. We continue that way, we have to take every single race as it comes. Surely we don’t have to win by taking too much risk but the target is still to win races.
“It feels wonderful like I said today and we try to achieve our optimum. If we have the chance to win then we have to take it. If the day comes and we are not competitive enough, and we are good enough for third, we have to finish third and not seventh.
“At the moment we all enjoy it. It is incredible the achievement and step the team made in the last two/three years. Every single department got so much professional. We have to keep doing what we do, and stay hungry wanting to win races and wanting to become better and better every time.”
The German, who has also been on pole position in all but one of the races this year, denied his win in Valencia had been easy.
He also praised the work of his Red Bull team for having produced such a strong car again.
“Maybe from the outside,” he said. “I don’t know how much there was happening in the grand prix. From myself it looked like an absorbing race. I enjoy it so much when it is you and your car every single lap. I had pressure from behind with Fernando and Mark, they were pitting some times before and some times after, they were pushing hard.
“For some reason I enjoy this track and it’s smooth too – it is fantastic. The team has done a phenomenal job. Even though we come here and say it might be tricky, we managed to put everything together. A faultless weekend and I am very happy with this result.”
Fernando Alonso described splitting the Red Bulls in the European Grand Prix as a ‘great achievement’ for Ferrari, and evidence that the team is getting much closer to winning.
Alonso moved up to third at the start and had a race-long battle with Mark Webber’s Red Bull – passing it on track in the second stint, falling behind again at the second pitstops, and then finally taking the place for good during the final pit sequence.
“It was an interesting race for the fans and people on TV, to see the fight with Webber all the race through,” said Alonso. “At the beginning of the race I was behind him, trying to not be too far away, and have a benefit in the pitstop and an opportunity to overtake him.
“We had an opportunity in the middle of race when I overtook him at Turn 12. They did a good stop and overtook us and then at final stop the team did a good strategy and we overtook him. Quite a bit of changing positions between Mark and me.
“Second place is the maximum we can have these days, so being here between the Red Bull Racing cars is a great achievement.
“Monaco was a good performance to finish second, Canada a good performance but we didn’t score and here second is a great team result.
“We are definitely moving in the right direction and will get closer to them at the next races.”
Alonso underlined that Ferrari had already made great progress since its troubled early races.
“I think we all in Ferrari know our tifosi is expecting us to win,” he said. “At the moment we are not in that position. We are getting much closer. In first few races we were 1.5 seconds behind, now it is six or seven tenths, so we have halved it. We will not stop working until we reach the performance of the car.”
Source: Autosport.com
Red Bull Racing’s Mark Webber has insisted that he was not at fault for losing second position at the European Grand Prix. Autosport.com has the story.
Mark Webber admitted it was his fault to miss out on second place in the European Grand Prix, but the Australian was very happy with his performance during the weekend.
Webber finished in third position, behind team-mate Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, after deciding to pit before the Spanish driver in his final stop.
The move did not pay off and Alonso, who was right in front of Webber before the pitstop, managed to make his stop and open a 17-second gap in the end.
Webber admitted it was his fault to pit when he did, a decision he reckons cost him second.
“I think we should have [finished second] but in the end we didn’t,” said Webber. “It was probably my best race of the year, to be honest. It was quite close with all three of us. We were trying to manage tyres. I was very, very happy with how the race was going – and it was my fault basically.
“I was right about Fernando coming underneath me in the stop and did not know how th medium would perform on the out lap. That is the risk I decided to take – we lost out.
“My fault to miss second today. All of us nip and tuck. In the end the gearbox was playing up. We had massive gap to McLaren so could cruise to the end.”
The Red Bull driver, however, was encouraged by his own performance and has vowed to be stronger in the next race.
“I think we saw today was the closest I’ve been for a while. I am getting better, up until the last 15 per cent, that is the way it goes. It’s fine line racing against those guys. I am happy with my performance and I will come back better at the next race.”
Both Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton has called on the team to improve the performance on the McLaren MP4-26 in order to challenge Red Bull and Ferrari. Autosport.com provides the details.
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button both called for the team to find more downforce on the car as soon as possible after they took disappointing fourth and sixth places in Valencia.
After several races in which McLaren had either looked capable of beating Red Bull or succeeded in doing so, the European Grand prix saw the Woking squad jumped by Ferrari and some way off the lead pace.
Hamilton said the team now needed more performance from its next batch of upgrades in order to close back in again.
“I think we’re quite a bit down on downforce,” he told television reporters. “We’ve not made an upgrade for several weeks now. We’ve had upgrades like the front wing for example but rear downforce, we’ve really been struggling with that.”
He also predicted that McLaren could suffer more than most when the exhaust set-up rules are tightened from the next race at Silverstone onwards.
“I think in the next race we’ll really, really struggle,” Hamilton warned. “Once we lose the engine map [blown exhaust] I think we may see some differences there.”
Button agreed with his team-mate assessment of McLaren’s position.
“We need some good upgrades,” he said. “We need to get our heads down and improve the car, the package. Aerodynamically I think we need an improvement for Silverstone because we’re not moving forward and that’s what we need to be concentrating on.
“I do know of some new parts that are coming but I think we need more. We need to take some risks because behind us is a big gap – this race anyway – to the Mercedes and the Ferraris are in front of us and the Red Bulls are miles away.
“We need a lot of laptime and I don’t think this new regulation change in terms if the diffuser blowing is really going to have a massive impact – on laptime it will but in terms of mixing up the field I don’t think it will. Hopefully we’ll gain a little bit more than Red Bull, but I’m not to sure at the moment.”
Hamilton said his Valencia race was compromised by a bad start and high tyre wear, but that the McLaren was not quick enough to do better than fourth in any case.
“It was just we got a bad start, a really very poor start, and lost out to the Ferraris but in all honesty we weren’t as quick as the Ferraris so even if I was ahead of them I would have really struggled to stay ahead,” he said.
“The guys [on the radio] were just asking me to stay out longer and I was like ‘I’m trying to look after the tyres as much as I can so this is all I can do’. So I was pushing all the way but my tyres… I was really struggling with oversteer for a long time.
“It seems like we’ve taken a step backwards perhaps this weekend in terms of our performance or the others have taken a step forwards again. To be able to finish fourth, at least that’s still some good points compared to the last two races I’ve had.”
Button’s run to sixth was also marred by his KERS breaking during the race.
“I didn’t have a very good balance, had a lot of wheelspin, which I was struggling a lot with throughout the race,” he said.
“We’ve taken a lot of front end out of the car and then I had the KERS fail halfway through, which for us is a lot of laptime. We have a very good KERS system and it’s about four and a half tenths around a lap because you gain on exits and braking when you have KERS.”
Jaime Alguersuari was delighted with his result in the European Grand Prix after charging from the back of the field.
The Spaniard had qualified down in 18th position after being knocked out in Q1, but on Sunday put on a superb drive to finish in eighth place.
It was the Toro Rosso driver’s second consecutive finish in the points and Alguersuari was elated.
“I am very happy with this result, especially after I only qualified in eighteenth place,” said Alguersuari. “It definitely paid off to concentrate on race set-up. This was a fantastic race and I want to thank my mechanics who worked so hard after the problems we had with my car on Friday during Free Practice.
“This result is a reward I am happy to give them. Even though I still struggle to get the best out of the tyres in qualifying, I feel I now have a much better understanding of how to use them in the race and that’s definitely the best way round as the points are only given out after the race!
“We were able to run at a consistent pace all afternoon, which was the key to this result and it’s the first time this season that I have had this feeling from the car and I am happy about that.
“Apart from working well with the tyres, I think the updates the team brought here were also a contributing factor, as they worked well and that partly explains why my pace was really good.”
Team-mate Sebastien Buemi finished down in 13th position, the Swiss mystified by his lack of pace.
“First of all, congratulations to Jaime who drove a very good race to bring home some valuable points for the team,” he said. “I had a very good start, passing quite a few people and running at a strong pace in the early stages.
“However, as soon as I had degradation from my tyres, my lap times slowed and I was no longer able to pass other cars. Now, immediately after the race, I’m not sure why I was not quick enough, as after the first stint I could no longer match my team-mate’s times, so we will have to look at the data.
“So, I am a bit disappointed, but we can sort it out and be ready to try again at Silverstone in two weeks time.”
Source: Autosport.com
Mercedes GP driver Michael Schumacher has only himself to blame for the contact with Vitaly Petrov during the race. The seven-time world champion was forced to pit after breaking the front wing against Petrov’s Renault at Turn 1. Autosport.com has the details.
Michael Schumacher took the blame for his crash with Vitaly Petrov during the European Grand Prix at Valencia.
The German driver made contact with the Renault at the first corner when the former champion rejoined the track after a pitstop, an incident which damaged the Mercedes’s front wing.
Schumacher was forced to drive a full lap with the damaged front wing before pitting, something that cost him all his chances of a good result.
The seven-time champion finished down in 17th place.
“Not a very satisfying race for me today,” said Schumacher. “The outcome was decided after lap 15 when I slid into Petrov and lost the points I could perhaps have achieved. Our race pace should have allowed me to finish more or less where I started, but that is only speculation after the incident.
“I saw Petrov quite late, even though I was aware that he was coming, and tried to brake as late as possible and go round the corner with him. But when I wanted to draw back, I locked the front wheel and slipped into him, which was clearly my mistake.
“From then onwards, the race was done and I just had to drive the car over the finish line. We will now look ahead to Silverstone which is one of our home races.”
Team-mate Nico Rosberg was seventh in the race.
Nick Heidfeld said he was hoping for more in the European Grand Prix after finishing in a distant 10th place.
The German driver finished a lap down after a poor start, having been unable to pass the Force India of Adrian Sutil.
Heidfeld conceded he wasn’t expecting to finish behind a Force India or the Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari.
“What cost us a little bit today was our starts,” said Heidfeld. “I lost a position to Adrian (Sutil) and then had to fight hard not to lose more. I finished more or less where I had been for the majority of the race.
“I managed to overtake him once but then he used DRS to get past me and unfortunately I was not able to attack any harder to get by him. It’s still another point gained for the team, but I did not expect to finish behind one Force India and one Toro Rosso.”
Heidfeld also admitted he believes the ban on off-throttle diffusers to be introduced from the British Grand Prix will help his team.
“Overall this weekend, we pushed hard but it just has not been possible to get the pace out of the car that we wanted at this track,” he said. “We will remain optimistic, though because Silverstone is a track with a lot of high speed corners, and our car performs well in these conditions.
“We will also see how the new regulations affect our car, but I think it will have a positive impact for our team.”
Team-mate Vitaly Petrov was also disappointed with his day after finishing down in 15th position, the Russian surprised his tyres did not last as much as he expected.
“Of course I am disappointed with today’s race,” he said. “I was very surprised that the tyres did not last very well for us, as some of our competitors were able to do a two-stop race whereas we needed three.
“We know that our car’s pace was not fantastic here and the race has strongly highlighted that we have work to do because we should finishing easily in the top ten.”
Source: Autosport.com
Tyre supplier Pirelli were unsure a more aggressive approach to tyre compound could have made the race at Valencia a better spectacle. Autosport.com provides the story.
Pirelli believes that even a more aggressive choice of tyres for the European Grand Prix may not have been enough to help make the Valencia race a thriller.
The Italian tyre manufacturer elected to bring its more conservative medium compound this weekend because it wanted to run it in race conditions before the British GP – and the easier time that drivers had with tyre degradation helped contribute to a less exciting race that has been the case at other events this year.
Although Pirelli’s director of motorsport Paul Hembery thinks a super soft/soft choice may well have improved matters slightly, he thinks it would not have been enough to deliver a huge spectacle.
“What we saw in GP2 and GP3 was that there was a lot of the overtaking under braking, and there are not that many places to overtake here,” Hembery told AUTOSPORT.
“But the F1 cars have extremely good braking, so we lost that little opportunity.
“From our point of view probably the conservative choice of medium did not help. If we had gone the super soft route – it would not have worked tremendously well here because it is far too hot for it – but people would have had to use it in qualifying and, if they had just got eight laps out of it, it would have pushed people harder on the soft, perhaps to the limit.
“They would only have needed a couple more laps out of each set on the soft, but some might have done it, some might have not and that might have brought into play a little bit more the performance difference of the cars as the tyres degraded more.
“We have seen that maybe we could have assisted – but I am not sure of that of course because we didn’t see the DRS working in many places. It is one for all of us to look back on – we need to look back and see what we could do.
“Having the super soft may well have created a slightly more interesting race, but I have doubts with the overtaking zones that it would not have changed a huge amount. It certainly would not have been as exciting as some of the other races we have seen.”
Hembery insisted, however, that there was no need for F1 to worry about the tyre situation simply because one race had not been tremendously exciting.
“I guess we were all a bit bored because we have been so used to so much excitement this year. We get a race that is relatively straightforward and we start worrying, but we are going now to Silverstone which is a step back to the other extreme. It is a high-speed aggressive circuit.”
Sebastian Vettel’s focus will remain very much on winning every race he can, even though his healthy championship lead now means he can start playing the numbers game to secure himself his second world title.
That is the view of his team boss Christian Horner, who reckons that Vettel is not yet ready to start taking things conservatively to guarantee another crown.
The German’s triumph in the European Grand Prix, which was his sixth victory this season from eight races, means he now has a 77-point advantage over Jenson Button in the championship standings.
Horner said that such a margin would not distract Vettel from his desire to keep adding more race victories to his tally.
“He is very focused on winning,” said Horner. “Montreal was all about winning. He went for it on the last lap because he knew he had to stay ahead at the DRS zone, but it did not work out for him there. His mindset is 25 points.”
Vettel’s advantage at the top of the standings means he could miss every race up until the Belgian Grand Prix at the end of August and still be leading the title chase at the Spa-Francorchamps event.
And although many of Vettel’s rivals now concede the title fight is all but over, Horner still refuses to believe Red Bull Racing has got the championship in the bag.
“I don’t know how many points there are available,” he said. “There are a lot of points on the board available and up for grabs, so you can never say never.
“Our focus is race-by-race: to go and maximise our performance and get the best out of each weekend we can. This weekend we came within three points of a maximum score, and we have had both cars on the podium.”
He added: “He [Vettel] and the team have got themselves into a strong position but, as we know, there is such a long way to go in this championship, and who knows what the effect of the regulation clarification – it is not a change – could be for Silverstone.
“I feel we have capitalised on all our opportunities so far and, as a team, that is hugely rewarding.”
Source: Autosport.com