2010 European Grand Prix - Vettel Charges To Euro Glory

It was Germany’s day in the sporting world yesterday.  Not only did their footballers take full advantage of England’s liability of a defence, Sebastian Vettel cruised to victory in a fairly dramatic European Grand Prix on the streets of Valencia.  However, it was his team-mate who took the main headlines, for the wrong reasons, as Mark Webber had a very lucky escape.

Webber has made a disastrous start, being shuffled back from 2^nd to 9^th and made an early pitstop in an effort to move up the order.  On Lap 9, he rapidly closed in on the slow Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen.  Kovalainen made a pointless effort to defend, considering he was four seconds slower and Webber misjudged the Finn’s braking point.  The result was dramatic and cataclysmic.  The Australian walloped into the back of Heikki at 196mph and somersaulted into the air, landing upside down, and then careering at unabated speed into the tyre barriers.  Amazingly, he walked away without a scratch, though visibly shaken by the incident.  No doubt, this was a lucky escape for Formula One.

   

Vettel started from pole, and resisted an aggressive start from championship leader Lewis Hamilton.  Despite some minor contact, it was Hamilton who came off worse, requiring a new front wing.  He also misjudged the timing of the Safety Car being released out of the pits after the Webber/Kovalainen smash, and overtook it on-track.  Consequently, he got landed with a drive-through penalty, but built up enough of an advantage to remain in second spot.  Despite closing up at times on the German, Hamilton never looked like troubling Vettel, who cruised to an untroubled victory, remarkably only his second victory of the 2010 season.

 

Hamilton’s second place finish outraged Ferrari, who saw Hamilton speed away from the Safety Car, yet back-up Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa.  As a result, their race was well and truly compromised, as they were forced to queue in the pits, and with overtaking limited, screwed their chances of a decent finish.  Alonso even had the indignity of being overtaken in the dying stages, by the Ferrari-shod Sauber of Japanese driver, Kamur Kobayashi.  8^th place was not what the doctor ordered for the Spaniard, who was furious afterwards, complaining bitterly about Hamilton’s lack of respect for the rules.  After his delay, Massa was never in contention and finished well outside the points for the second successive race.

Kobayashi made the most of the Safety Car, and stuck it out on the more preferred prime tyre for 53 of the 57 laps, therefore running in 3^rd for most of the race.  His late stop dropped him back, but two fantastic moves on Alonso and Sebastian Buemi saw him finish a well-deserved 7^th.  Pedro de la Rosa also scored a point, but saw it taken away in the stewards room, when he was one of nine drivers penalised for going too fast under Safety Car conditions.  With Vitaly Petrov also suffering this fate, it allowed a very fortunate Nico Rosberg into the points.  It was a miserable weekend for Mercedes, with Michael Schumacher another victim of the Safety Car conditions.  He was forced to wait under a red light, and wait for the crocodile to go past the pitlane.  Having started 15^th, it was left for him to be restricted to a test session.

Jenson Button finished a strong and solid 3^rd, ahead of last year’s winner, Rubens Barrichello.  Barrichello’s drive was brilliant, showing that Williams still have potential after a difficult 2010 so far.  Robert Kubica continued his rich vein of points scoring, with another committed effort on his way to 5^th, with Adrian Sutil doing likewise for Force India, winding up 6^th.  All these four drivers were penalised five seconds for the Safety Car regulation, yet it didn’t affect their finishing positions.

For Mark Webber, he was lucky to escape from a scary moment for the sport, but Sebastian Vettel breathed new momentum and life into his previous limping championship challenge.  Silverstone is next in a fortnight’s time, with McLaren leading the constructors’ championship and Hamilton and Button heading there, still 1-2 in the drivers’ championship.  More twists are bound to happen, as F1 2010 reaches its halfway stage.