GP Europe – Race: Vettel crushes the competition… Alonso follows

At the start, the Ferraris get off to a very good start, especially Felipe Massa who has the luxury of attempting an overtake on Mark Webber. But the Australian is clever and squeezes him on the inside before the first corner. Massa loses his third place to Fernando Alonso who had chosen an outside line. Behind, there are no issues to report, and the first laps are very clean, unlike what happened in GP2 on this track.

Vettel quickly opens the gap on Mark Webber during the first 5 laps. Then, the gap stabilizes, and the two drivers exchange the fastest laps. As the first pit stops occur, starting from the 11th lap with Nick Heidfeld, the leaders also enter the pits. The top three remain unchanged at the 20th lap: Vettel-Webber-Alonso, who are still on soft tires. Behind these three, the McLarens struggle to keep pace, and the tires of the grey team seem to wear out faster than the others. They must adopt a much slower pace to have any hope of performing well in this Grand Prix. Exiting the pits, Michael Schumacher is involved in an incident with Vitaly Petrov, and the German driver’s wing breaks. He has to return to the pits the following lap to change it, and he, too, has nothing left to play for at this point in the race.

On the 21st lap, Alonso outmaneuvers Mark Webber and delights the crowd that came to support him. After 25 laps, the gap between Vettel and Alonso is close to 4 seconds. The German driver doesn’t seem to be pushing hard, as usual, but he’s still managing to open a slight gap. The McLarens are out of contention and can only try to minimize the damage to their tires. « Watch your pace » they tell Hamilton, who retorts that he can’t go any slower. To make matters worse, Button, in 7th place, suffers from a KERS issue: it’s not working anymore.

The second wave of pit stops occurs as early as the 30th lap. Thanks to a quick lap out of the pits, Webber retakes second position from Alonso by a few tenths. Ahead, Vettel is 1.5 seconds ahead. Massa, who stopped while he was in second position, experiences a problem in the pits: the left rear wheel nut fell off, and the mechanics have to repeat the maneuver, causing the Brazilian to lose precious seconds. By the 38th lap, Webber is 3.8 seconds behind his teammate, who seems to be definitively flying towards victory unless a problem arises.

Hamilton, in fourth place on the 41st lap, is more than 30 seconds behind Vettel. Needless to say, the race is a disaster for McLaren. Webber pits on the 45th lap to switch to medium tires. Alonso stays on the track as long as possible and when he finally stops, he re-emerges ahead of the Australian, who encountered too much traffic to maintain his second place. Vettel has more than a 28-second lead when he changes his tires. He logically rejoins ahead of Alonso by nearly 8 seconds and Webber.

Three laps from the end of the race, Webber experiences minor issues and is lapping very slowly, at 1:46, while Vettel and Alonso are around 1:41. The Australian still has a sufficient margin over Hamilton. Following are Massa, Button, Rosberg, Alguersuari, Sutil, and Heidfeld.

Final victory for Sebastian Vettel! The Red Bull driver completed a perfect race, as he knows how to do, and was never troubled during this European Grand Prix. He even achieved the triple by also setting the fastest lap time on the track. With 6 wins and 2 second places in 8 races, he is well on his way to a second Formula 1 world championship title. On the Ferrari side, there is reason to smile, as the objective was met: Alonso secured a podium finish. However, for McLaren, the race was a long procession, with both drivers suffering from severe tire wear. Behind them, a very good result for Jaime Alguersuari can be noted as he finished 8th, improving his situation within Toro Rosso.

Finally, it should be noted that 24 cars finished the race, setting a new record in Formula 1. The previous record was from the 2011 Chinese Grand Prix, where 23 cars saw the checkered flag.

Result of the 2011 European Grand Prix – Valencia (Spain):