European Grand Prix 2011 Round-up

Firstly, I'd just like to apologise for not posting anything for the past two days – I'm currently on holiday in Tuscany, and I've been unable to access the internet at the villa in which I'm staying until today. There was also the minor issue of having no means of watching the usual BBC broadcast, so instead I was forced to make do with the advert-infested German satellite channel RTL.

As it happens though, it would appear that I chose a good race for which to be on holiday! After some scintillating races at Catalunya, Monaco and Montreal, yesterday's race from Valencia was unfortunately rather processional. Sebastian Vettel put a tentative first finger on the championship crown after taking a lights-to-flag victory around the streets of the Spanish city; his authority over the race was never seriously disputed after the first few corners, and after a faultless drive extended his championship advantage ahead of Jenson Button and Mark Webber to a mighty 77 points.

Vettel's Red Bull teammate Webber debated second with Fernando Alonso for much of the race, with the result eventually being decided in the favour of the latter thanks to a sparkling performance on home turf. The Ferrari number one did look like challenging Vettel for the lead at one stage, but as things transpired it seemed the young German had it all in hand. After losing out to both Ferraris on the opening lap, Lewis Hamilton could only manage fourth – he was able to undercut Felipe Massa at the first stops to claw back one of the lost positions, but the three leaders were simply too fast for the Brit on this occasion.

Massa came home fifth ahead of Canadian GP victor Button, whose race was compromised by being passed by Nico Rosberg's Mercedes in the opening stages. He eventually found a way back past the silver car courtesy of the double-DRS zone, but by then was languishing behind his rivals and had to settle for a subdued sixth place. Rosberg held on to seventh, but the other Mercedes of Michael Schumacher ended up a lowly seventeenth after some early contact with Vitaly Petrov, who turned across the bows of the seven-time champion as he exited the pits.

Jaime Alguersauri made use of only making two stops (compared to three for the majority of the field) to finish a creditable eighth, whilst Sergio Perez got away with just one stop on his return to pick up eleventh. In between the pair of youngsters were Germans Adrian Sutil and Nick Heidfeld, with 2009 Valencia winner Rubens Barrichello in twelfth ahead of a tight bunch consisting of Sebastien Buemi, Paul Di Resta, Kamui Kobayashi and Petrov.

Interestingly, not a single car retired from the race, giving Narain Karthikeyan the dubious distinction of making history as the lowest-ever classified finisher after bringing his Hispania home in 24^th and last place. The lack of retirements reflected a dull race in general, with DRS and tyre degradation having made little impact on the result. If F1 has gained a new legion of fans this season, then a race such as this may regrettably make some of them think twice before tuning into the British Grand Prix.

In fact, Valencia deserves to be axed from the calendar altogether in my view. Not only has it never produced even a vaguely entertaining race in its relatively short history, but with the United States returning to the calendar next year and several other nations such as France, Russia and South Africa clamouring for a space on the calendar in the future, having two Grand Prix in Spain is totally unjustifiable.

Apologies again for the belated post but make sure you check back here in two weeks for comprehensive reports on both qualifying and the race for the British Grand Prix, as well as the second part of my 'Under New Management' series a week prior to that.