Sabastian Vettel dominated the European Grand Prix at Valencia
at the weekend from start to finish, in what was probably the least exciting
race of the season so far, a point highlighted by Jenson Button: "It wasn't exactly the most thrilling of races, was it?". The regulation changes that everybody hoped were going to shake things up and reduce Red Bulls advantage seemingly had zero effect. The car, driver and team
combination that Red Bull has this year is incredible and it is difficult to
see how anyone will challenge Vettel for the championship.
Something I found interesting is that Ferrari seemed to have
made huge improvements for the weekend. It is the best team result for Ferrari
this year when both cars are taken into account. There is more than half of the
calendar left to go, so it remains to be seen if they can crawl back the points
and challenge for the team title, or even to “overtake” McLaren in second.
On the other hand McLaren seemed to have gone backwards.
Both Button and Hamilton had issues with their cars. The KERS, the tyres and down
force seem to be the main issues. But will they recover in time for Silverstone
in two weeks time? …Probably not!
|
Pos
|
No
|
Driver
|
Team
|
Laps
|
Time
|
Grid
|
Pts
|
|
1
|
1
|
S. Vettel
|
RBR-Renault
|
57
|
1:39:36.169
|
1
|
25
|
|
2
|
5
|
F. Alonso
|
Ferrari
|
57
|
+10.8 secs
|
4
|
18
|
|
3
|
2
|
Mark Webber
|
RBR-Renault
|
57
|
+27.2 secs
|
2
|
15
|
|
4
|
3
|
L. Hamilton
|
McLaren
|
57
|
+46.1 secs
|
3
|
12
|
|
5
|
6
|
Felipe Massa
|
Ferrari
|
57
|
+51.7 secs
|
5
|
10
|
|
6
|
4
|
J. Button
|
McLaren
|
57
|
+60.0 secs
|
6
|
8
|
|
7
|
8
|
Nico Rosberg
|
Mercedes
|
57
|
+98.0 secs
|
7
|
6
|
|
8
|
19
|
J.Alguersuari
|
STR-Ferrari
|
56
|
+1 Lap
|
18
|
4
|
|
9
|
14
|
Adrian Sutil
|
Force
India
|
56
|
+1 Lap
|
10
|
2
|
|
10
|
9
|
Nick
Heidfeld
|
Renault
|
56
|
+1 Lap
|
9
|
1
|