Fernando Alonso took a sensational second victory of the season at an action-packed European Grand Prix around the streets of Valencia. As his rivals suffered a range of mishaps, Alonso gradually brought his Ferrari into contention having started from eleventh on the grid, not putting a foot wrong en route to take a well-deserved victory from Kimi Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher.
It was Sebastian Vettel that set the pace on Saturday, taking pole position by a comfortable margin of three tenths from Lewis Hamilton. Pastor Maldonado, who won for Williams during Formula One’s previous visit to Spain, qualified an impressive third ahead of the two highly fancied Lotus machines of Romain Grosjean and Raikkonen. With the field so tightly packed, a number of big names found themselves down the grid – Jenson Button qualified ninth, Alonso eleventh and Schumacher twelfth, whilst DRS failure for Mark Webber saw the Australian drop out of Q1 and line up nineteenth on the grid.
As the lights went out, Vettel and Hamilton made solid getaways to hold the first two positions, whilst the two Lotus drivers made strong starts. Raikkonen backed off as he tried to pass Maldonado up the inside of the flat-out first corner, whilst teammate Grosjean sliced inside at the tighter second turn to take third ahead of the Venezuelan driver. Raikkonen was then passed by Kamui Kobayashi, who made a good start from seventh on the grid, the Japanese proceeding to pass Maldonado later in the lap to complete the initial tour in fourth place.
Vettel was able to set a blistering pace at the head of the field, building up a gap of four seconds back to Hamilton by the end of the second lap. As Vettel continued to make good his escape, Grosjean was finally able to make a pass on Hamilton after several aborted attempts with the help of the DRS, situated on the approach to turn 12, on lap 10. Hamilton was the first of the front-runners to dive for the pit-lane for a fresh set of tyres, doing so at the end of lap 13, and held third position behind runaway leader Vettel and Grosjean, who both made their stops three laps later.
Behind Hamilton now lain Alonso, who had made his way up to a net fourth place with a great start and strong pace prior to his first stop on lap 15. Raikkonen at the same time was able to vault ahead of Kobayashi during the first round of pit-stops to take fifth, though the Japanese driver was removed from contention on lap 20 after being squeezed into the wall on the approach to turn 4 by a yet-to-stop Bruno Senna, necessitating a change of front wing for the Sauber driver.
The second round of stops arrived just as the safety car was deployed as a result of a shower of debris that arose from contact between Heikki Kovalainen and Jean-Eric Vergne, precipitated by a botched overtaking move at turn 12 by the latter. The net positions of the top six were unchanged save for Hamilton, who dropped behind Alonso and Raikkonen as a result of yet another mishandled pit-stop by the McLaren pit-crew. As the race got underway once more on lap 34, Vettel continued to lead until an abrupt alternator failure saw his Red Bull coast to a halt, handing the lead to Alonso who had surged past Grosjean with a bold pass at turn 2 at the restart.
Alonso’s miraculous luck continued on lap 41 as Grosjean’s car suddenly suffered the same fate as Vettel's, giving the home-hero a four second lead over Hamilton, who overtook Raikkonen shortly after the restart at turn 12, and Maldonado. Hamilton's efforts to reduce the gap to Alonso were soon curtailed by excessive rear tyre wear in a role-reversal of the Canadian Grand Prix two weeks earlier. Raikkonen subsequently began to close in, and Hamilton’s superb defending served only to delay the inevitable demotion as Raikkonen was able to get superior drive out of the turn 17 hairpin with two laps to go to take second position.
Maldonado now sensed his opportunity to grab his second podium of the season, and in a matter of corners he had positioned his Williams nose-to-tail with the ailing McLaren. Maldonado made his move around the outside of turn 12 on the penultimate lap, but Hamilton stuck steadfastly to his line whilst Maldonado outbraked himself, left the track to his outside and then clattered into the side of the McLaren as he tried to force his way back on to the circuit. The upshot of this collision was a broken front wing for Maldonado and retirement for a visibly frustrated Hamilton, whose McLaren was launched directly into the retaining barrier.
With his two closest championship rivals eliminated from the race, Alonso took the chequered flag for the 29th time in his career to become 2012’s first repeat winner and to take the championship lead. Raikkonen finished a comfortable second position, whilst the accident between Hamilton and Maldonado allowed the final podium position to be filled by Schumacher, who with the help of making a late pit-stop on lap 42 was able to scythe his way past numerous drivers on older rubber to take an overdue first post-comeback podium finish. Hot on the German’s heels was Webber, who adopted a similar strategy to Schumacher to take fourth place – something the Australian would not have been expecting following his dismal showing in qualifying.
Nico Hulkenberg was able to stay out of trouble to cross the line in a career-best fifth place, the Force India putting in its most competitive showing of the year so far. Paul di Resta came close to finishing sixth with a one-stop strategy, but was just beaten to the line by Nico Rosberg who was able to claw back some of the ground he lost with a poor start from sixth on the grid with a last-gasp pit-stop on lap 46. Button scored his first points since Catalunya in a fairly anonymous if not disastrous run to eighth place, ahead of Sergio Perez who was mysteriously unable to pull off his customary long first stint despite starting on medium tyres.
Maldonado crossed the line tenth, but a post-race penalty for his clash with Hamilton dropped him to twelfth position; this gave teammate Senna the final point despite the Brazilian being handed a drive-through penalty for his collision with Kobayashi. Daniel Ricciardo had a brief coming-together with Vitaly Petrov en route to what would become eleventh place. Behind Maldonado finished Petrov and Kovalainen, who were both forced to pit following their respective incidents with the Toro Rossos of Ricciardo and Vergne. The Frenchman promptly retired and was handed a ten-place grid penalty for the next round at Silverstone for his misdemeanour.
Charles Pic brought home Marussia’s sole entry in the race in fifteenth with Timo Glock absent due to illness, ahead of Felipe Massa who was another to have to pit for repairs after a recovering Kobayashi harpooned into the side of his Ferrari at turn 10 immediately after the restart. The Japanese driver was eliminated on the spot, and will take a five-place grid penalty at Silverstone to add insult to injury. The two HRTs of Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan were left to complete the list of finishers, the latter incurring a drive-through penalty for pit-lane speeding at mid-distance.
Alonso’s lead of twenty points is hardly what you would call secure, but it is the largest margin any driver has enjoyed in the championship up to now. The Ferrari is still some way from being an entirely competitive package, but it has been Alonso’s relentless consistency and opportunism that sees the Spaniard on top for the time being. The unpredictable nature of this season has placed a premium on constant points-scoring – if that’s what this year’s title tight ultimately comes down to, it would take a brave soul to bet against Alonso getting the job done.
No comments:
Post a Comment